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Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School
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John Muir and the Edenic narrative: Towards an understanding of class and racial bias in the writing of a preeminent environmentalist
Russell Owen The University of Montana
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. JOHN MUIR AND THE BDENIC NARRATIVE* TOWARDS
AN UNDERSTANDING OF CLASS AND RACIAL BIAS IN THE
WRITING OF A PREEMINENT ENVIRONMENTALIST
by
Russell Owen
B.A. The University of Montana, 1993
presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts
The University of Montana
1998
Approved by*
Chairperson
Dean, Graduate School
Date
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Owen. Russell D.. M.A., May 1998 History
John Muir and the Edenic Narrative: Towards an Under standing of Class and Racial Bias in the Writing of a Preeminent Environmentalist
Directors Dan Flores
John Muir's writings contain biased portrayals of Native Americans and working class people. The passages where these portrayals occur have been largely ignored by John Muir's major biographers. The passages have been considered inconsistent with Muir's mature thought and, thus, not worthy of attention. When examined thoroughly, however, these passages may be understood as being consonant with John Muir's basic understanding of human history. John Muir's conception of human history and the progress of civilization were rooted in his upbringing on Wisconsin farms and in his education at the University of Wisconsin. Both experiences led Muir to value technology and science as essential means to human progress. The preservationist especially praised the scientific disciplines. He believed humans would come to a deeper understanding of God through science. The emphasis in John Muir's philosophy on the importance of technology and science led to a biased view of workers. Muir came to identify with and champion the efforts of industrial and intellectual elites. At the same time, he denigrated laborers and declined to admit their role in Western Civilization's advance. As his wilderness philosophy evolved, it increasingly appealed to an audience urban and wealthy in composition. John Muir's advocacy of scientific and technological advance also influenced his view of Native Americans and their respective cultures. As individuals. Native Americans were compared to the "degraded working classes.” John Muir measured Native American cultures in terms of Western Civilization's ideals of human progress. Consequently, he always viewed Native American cultures as occupying a position inferior to those cultures evolving out of Western European traditions. The failure of biographers to consider fully John Muir's biases has resulted in a simplified view of his life and his legacy. John Muir and the preservation movement have been enshrined. A more accurate view of John Muir and his legacy will open the way for a deeper understanding of the complexities at work in today's environmental conflicts.
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
2. THE EDENIC NARRATIVE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF JOHN MUIR'S WORLDVIEW ...... 11
3. PROGRESS. THE GARDEN, AND THEWORKING CLASS ... 39
4. THE SAVAGE AND THE CIVILIZED: JOHN MUIR'S PERCEPTIONS OF NATIVE AMERICANS ...... 69
5. CONCLUSIONS ...... 101
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 112
ill
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In 1869. John Muir lost himself amongst the glorious
peaks, meadows, valleys, and lake basins of California's
Sierras for an entire summer. A year before, he had made a
brief visit to the Yosemlte Valley and the nearby Mariposa
Grove of grand Sequoias. During the trip, the area captured
Muir's Imagination and, on his return In 1869. an Intox
icated energy animated his explorations. He wandered
through sculpted amphitheaters, climbed hump-backed peaks,
strolled across fields dotted with pastel-colored
wlldflowers, and felt water droplets sting his face as he
stood under the shattering of a waterfall.^
However. John Muir was not alone In the Sierra. His
experiences during the summer of 1869. recorded In the
autobiographical work. Mv First Summer In the Sierra, also
tell the story of a season spent tending a large flock of
sheep. Muir had gained employment from a sheepman named Pat
Delaney. Along with a shepherd--a hot-headed youth called
Bllly--Mulr followed the flock Into the mountain pastures of
the Sierra. Delaney did not hire Muir to work directly In
the job of herding, but Instead used him as a sort of
confidant, overseeing Billy's work. The position delighted
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Muir because it allowed him to spend long days away from the
sheep, enjoying the high country.^
Perhaps nothing fascinated John Muir as much as the
mountains themselves. Their cut faces, domed backs, and
moraines posed a riddle. Over the next several years, his
geological publications would help establish the signifi
cance of glaciation on the Yosemite landscape. His work
discredited the theories of a contemporary geologist, Josiah
Dwight Whitney, who explained the local geology in terms of
subsidence. In contrast to Muir's glacial theories, Whitney
believed the Yosemite once rested on hollow space--in a
series of dramatic catastrophes the valley fell like a
collapsing cake.^
As with most trips, Muir's summer of shepherding had
its good points and its bad. If the landscape, plants, and
animals of the Sierra never failed to enchant him, the same
could not be said for his travelling companions. The young
shepherd, Billy, particularly irritated Muir. Among other
shortcomings, Billy exhibited no appreciation for his scenic
surroundings, was a poor conversationalist, indulged in
chewing copious amounts of tobacco, and possessed no small
share of impudence. More than anything, though, Muir found
Billy disgustingly dirty*
Following the sheep he carries a heavy six-shooter swung from his belt on one side and his luncheon on the other. The ancient cloth in which the meat, fresh from the frying pan, is tied serves as a fil ter through which the fat and gravy Juices drip
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. down on his right hip and leg in clustering stalac tites. . . . These precious overalls are never taken off, and nobody knows how old they are, though one may guess by their thickness and concen tric structure. Instead of wearing thin they wear thick, and in their stratification have no small geological significance.'
Muir was equally offended by the lack of hygiene exhibited
by a Digger Indian who helped drive the sheep during the
first days of summer, and by other Indians he encountered in
the mountains. At a high pass, late in the month of August,
Muir met a group of Indians on their way to the Yosemite
Valley to gather acorns. As with Billy's pants, Muir relied
on geology to describe their appearance : "The dirt on some
of the faces seemed almost old enough and thick enough to
have geological significance.
Unflattering portrayals of both Native Americans and a
variety of working class people— particularly sheepherders,
loggers, and shakemakers--abound in John Muir's writing.
However, in treatments of John Muir's life, thought, and
writings, these passages have been largely ignored. A few
exceptions are worth note. Herbert F. Smith deals with
Muir's portrayal of the shepherd, Billy, in his book John
Muir. Smith offers an interesting interpretation that
includes the observation that Muir utilized the shepherd
Billy as a "dominant symbol of anti-nature."® Nonetheless,
Smith quickly dismisses any notion that Muir's portrayal of
the shepherd may have been part of a wider web of bias
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. against working-class peoples: "Muir is no snob about 'his'
wild nature. He is willing to share it with all . . .
Similar to Herbert F. Smith, Richard Fleck recognizes
the overtly negative aspects of Muir's portrayals of Native
Americans. Fleck understands these aspects in terms of
"culture shock." According to Fleck, Muir initially used
the reigning cultural biases of his day to understand Native
Americans, but later came to understand and respect them
both on an individual basis and in terms of their culture.
Muir's attitudes toward the Digger Indians of California were quite prejudiced, for instance. However, after several excursions to the Alaskan glaciers where Muir lived among the various Thlinkit tribes including the Chilcats, Hoonas, and Takus, he grew to respect and honor their beliefs, actions, and life styles.^
Michael P. Cohen, in his biography of John Muir The Pathless
Wav; John Muir and American Wilderness, suggests a slightly
different way of understanding Muir's portrayal of Native
Americans : "Perhaps Muir's personal experience with Indians
was limited to the observation of decaying or degraded
cultures."*
Though writers such as Cohen and Smith have
occasionally considered Muir's characterizations of Native
Americans and working class peoples, they have tended to do
so in isolation. These biased portrayals are not seen as
important aspects of John Muir's nature philosophy, but as
pedestrian examples of cultural bias that Muir unconsciously
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reproduced in his writing. They are explained as atypical
and contradictory to Muir's deepest convictions and beliefs.
The majority of Muir's modern biographers have
underscored John Muir's break with mainstream American
culture. Linnie Marsh Wolfe in her award-winning biography.
Son of the Wilderness : The Life of John Muir, emphasized
Muir's rejection of the nineteenth-century's strongest
values, "John Muir turned his back upon wealth and posi
tion."^® As a consequence of his rejection of mainstream
cultural values, Muir was believed to possess none of the
racial or class biases so typical of nineteenth-century
America: "he was blazingly intolerant of bigotry and every
form of social callousness."^^ Frederick Turner's
biography. Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and
Ours, posits a somewhat similar interpretation. Unlike
Wolfe, Turner is careful not to overstate Muir's removal
from mainstream culture or to underestimate its influence on
his thought. Nonetheless, Turner also portrays John Muir as
soberly rejecting the values of excess and greed common to
his day (the nineteenth-century preoccupation with wealth
and power, for example).According to Turner, John Muir's
exceptional intellectual and moral development set him apart
from the overwhelming majority of Americans. From such a
removed position, Muir was less likely to express bigotry,
and more likely to appreciate minority beliefs and values.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. than people clustered about the nucleus of the dominant
culture.
Several biographers have characterized John Muir's
break with mainstream culture in more restricted terms.
These authors suggest Muir developed a philosophy far
removed from orthodox Christian beliefs. In his book, John
Muir and his Leaacv; The American Conservation Movement.
Stephen Fox asserts that "in the course of working out his
own philosophy Muir made a permanent break from
Christianity."^^ Max Oelschlaeger makes a nearly identical
observation about John Muir in his book. The Idea of
Wilderness ; From Prehistorv to the Age of Ecoloavi "He
simply outgrew the constrictions of conventional faith and
developed a theology of the wilderness."^®
The results tend to be the same whether an author
characterizes John Muir as breaking with mainstream culture,
or with Christianity. In either case, the break allows John
Muir a wider, more objective view, unencumbered by class or
racial bias. For Max Oelschlaeger, John Muir's evolving
philosophy helped him verge "on the recovery of the
Paleolithic mind.Stephen Fox believed the development
of Muir's thought also led him away from mainstream culture:
"Actually Muir had more in common with Indians than with
most civilized Christians."
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Reconciling the interpretations presented in preceding
paragraphs with John Muir's denigrating portrayals of Native
Americans and the lower classes is» at best, difficult. One
can, or course, believe the biased passages should be
treated as aberrations in Muir's writing. From my perspec
tive. however, patterns begin to emerge when these passages
are assembled and viewed critically.
In this thesis, I will argue that John Muir's
portrayals of woodsworkers and Native Americans were rooted
in his most fundamental understanding of human history and
its relationship to the natural world. Moreover, these
conceptions of nature and history did not represent a
radical departure. They were situated firmly in a tradition
that was Western European and Christian in orientation.
Historians Donald Worster, Dennis Williams, and Mark
Stoll have studied the impact of Christianity on Muir's
nature philosophy in recent years. The religiosity of
Muir's father, who adhered to the doctrines of a Protestant
sect called the Campbellites, had a particularly profound
impact on Muir both in youth and in his mature thoughts. My
approach varies from that used by the above mentioned
authors in giving John Muir's view of history special
attention. My interest lies in understanding how Muir's
ideas related to popularly held beliefs concerning the
advance of Western Civilization. These ideas derived much
of their substance from Christian traditions. Worster,
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Williams, and Stoll are more Interested In understanding how
Muir's blocentrlsm, spirituality, and environmental activism
derived from Christian teachings (Campbelllte beliefs,
specifically). Nonetheless, I like to think my thesis
shares, with the work of these authors. In a more careful
contextuallration of John Muir's Ideology.
My thesis will be divided Into three chapters. The
first will chart and Interpret the early development of
Muir's attitudes towards human history and nature. In the
second chapter, I will discuss how these attitudes
translated Into biased portraits of laborers, and small
producers. The third chapter will follow the development of
John Muir's attitudes towards Native Americans. In the
concluding pages of my paper I will consider the
significance of John Muir's portrayals of Native Americans
and working class people In terms of environmental history
and the modern environmental movement.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1. For background on Muir's first visit of 1868 I referred to Thurman Wilkins, John Muir; Apostle of Nature (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 57-58. The rest of the paragraph is drawn loosely from John Muir, Mv First Summer in the Sierra (Boston and Constable, London : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books (Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 185-287.
2. Muir, Mv First Summer. 191-192.
3. For general background of John Muir's contributions to geology see Dennis R. Dean, "Muir and Geology," in John Muir; Life and Work. ed. Sally M. Miller (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 168-93. Muir's opposition to Whitney's theory is detailed in Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness : The Life of John Muir (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1945; reprint, Madison : The University of Wisconsin Press. 1978), 131-33.
4. Muir, Mv First Summer. 237-38.
5. Ibid., 271.
6. Herbert F . Smith, John Muir (New Haven, Conn.: College & University Press, 1965), 59.
7. Ibid., 63.
8. Richard F . Fleck, "John Muir's Evolving Attitudes Toward Native American Cultures," American Indian Quarterly 2 (Feb, 1978): 19. For Fleck's argument in more depth see Richard F . Fleck Henry Thoreau and John Muir among the Indians (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1985).
9. Michael P. Cohen, The Pathless Wav; iohn Muir and American Wilderness (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 185.
10. Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness, ix.
11. Ibid., viii.
12. Frederick Turner, Rediscovering America; John Muir in His Time and Ours (New York; Viking, 1985 ; reprint, San Francisco : Sierra Club Books, 1985), 320.
13. Frederick Turner provides evidence that Muir concurred with Ralph Waldo Emerson's celebration of the trials and separateness of "the man of genius." See Turner, Rediscovering America. 217.
14. Stephen Fox, John Muir and His Legacy; The American Conservation Movement (Boston and Toronto : Little, Brown, and Company, 1981), 50.
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15. Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness : From Prehistorv to the Age of Ecology (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 177,
16. Ibid.. 184.
17. Fox, John Muir and His Legacy. 364.
18. For these studies, see Donald Worster, "John Muir and the Roots of American Environmentalism," chap. in The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 184-202; Dennis Williams, "John Muir, Christian Mysticism, and the Spiritual Value of Nature," in John Muir; Life and Work, edited by Sally M. Miller (Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 82-99; and Mark Stoll, "God and John Muir : A Psychological Interpretation of John Muir's Journey from the Campbellites to the 'Range of Light,'" in John Muir: Life and Work. 64-81.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 2
THE EDENIC NARRATIVE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF JOHN MUIR'S WORLDVIEW
On the tenth of November, 1875, winter storm clouds
began to sift into the Yosemite Valley. Soon snow would
fall on the cliffs and mountain faces, bringing the lines of
granite fractures and striations into exquisite relief. To
John Muir, it was the perfect time to climb a peak before
winter descended in full earnest. Despite the warnings of
an old mountaineer, he chose to climb one of the area's most
difficult peaks, the South Dome.
Fortunately, John Muir's ascent went smoothly and he
was able to enjoy "one of those brooding changeful days that
come between the Indian summer and winter. At the summit,
he watched as lustrous, white clouds filled the valley below
him. And then, something unusual happened.
Gazing, admiring. I was startled to see for the first time the rare optical phenomenon of the 'Spectre of Brocken.' My shadow, clearly outlined, about half a mile long, lay upon this glorious white surface with startling effect. I walked back and forth, waved my arms and struck all sorts attitudes, to see every slightest movement enor mously exaggerated.^
From a modern perspective, John Muir's experience on South
Dome seems to prophesy the future. In 1875, the critical
elements of his nature philosophy were in place, but his
11
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enormous legacy to the preservation and protection of parks
like Yosemite would rest on his work during future decades.
In the following chapter, I wish to focus not on John
Muir's influence--the giant shadow he cast--but the
development of the man who stood on the top of South Dome in
1875. I will look specifically at how Muir's understanding
of nature and wilderness were delineated by his conceptions
of human history. Central to this task is an understanding
of "the story" that European Americans told themselves
during the nineteenth century--the story that both motivated
and justified the conquest of Native American lands and the
industrialization of America's cities.
To accomplish this objective, I will summarize a recent
essay by historian Carolyn Merchant, identifying the compo
nents and provenance of this dominant story of European
culture. It is a story she identifies as "the Edenic
narrative." In turn, I will consider the development of
John Muir's philosophy of history, showing how it borrowed
and deviated from the Edenic narrative in its popular form--
acquiring shades of intellectual elitism as it grew more
unique.
In her recent essay, "Reinventing Eden : Western
Culture as a Recovery Narrative," Carolyn Merchant studies
the biblical story of Eden from an environmental
perspective. ^ She considers how the story of Adam and Eve's
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expulsion from the Garden of Eden has shaped the European
American understanding of humans and their relationship to
nature. According to Merchant, "the story of Western
civilization since the seventeenth century and its advent on
the American continent can be conceptualized as a grand
narrative of fall and recovery. The plot of such a story
follows a long, slow line of ascension from the fall of Adam
and Eve to the successful reclamation of Eden on the
American continent.
Carolyn Merchant begins tracing the development of the
Recovery Narrative from the Renaissance. She notes that
explorers described their discoveries of new lands in terms
of rediscovering Eden. With the arrival of the seventeenth
century, however, the Edenic narrative developed a new
dimension with "New World colonists . . • [undertaking] a
massive effort to reinvent the whole earth in the image of
Eden."® Moreover, leading intellectuals began to see
science, technology, and laissez-faire capitalism as an
exciting means to recreate the Garden.
An important dimension to Merchant's understanding is
the role of gender in the Edenic Narrative. As the
narrative developed, nature came to represent fallen Eve.
Nature, in the Edenic recovery story, appears in three forms. As original Eve, nature is a virgin, pure, and light--land that is pristine or barren, but that has the potential for development. As fallen Eve, nature is disorderly and chaotic ; a wilderness, wasteland, or desert requiring improve ment; dark and witchlike, the victim and mouthpiece
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of Satan as serpent. As mother Eve, nature is an improved garden, nurturing earth bearing fruit, ripened ovary, maturity.®
Fallen Adam, on the other hand, appeared in a variety of
modern guises--from scientist to frontiersmen, from
industrial leader to farmer. In America, the overall
project of these men was the recovery of lost Eden.
The Edenic Narrative owed its development to more than
a Christian tradition revitalized by the Enlightenment. As
Merchant points out, the Narrative also possessed Greco-
Roman roots. For example, Christians used the ancient Greek
story of slow decline from a golden age to reinforce,
"the . . . image of the precipitous fall from the Garden of
Eden.From the Roman tradition came the philosophical
base to understand human progress. Virgil developed a
cyclical narrative structure to explain the development of
civilizations. According to Merchant, his narrative
mimicked "the human life cyle,” civilizations grew out of
chaos (winter), to a pastoral state (spring), to the
development of agriculture (summer), and the establishment
of cities (fall), eventually falling back into winter.
Virgil's narrative influenced the Edenic narrative in that
it showed the growth of civilization as a logical, natural
progression. In the case of the Edenic narrative the end
point of the progression was located in the reconstruction
of Eden.
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The power of the Edenic narrative in European American
history would be hard to overestimate. Merchant argues that
it served as a powerful propellant for the conquest of
American lands and peoples. She demonstrates how writing,
from William Bradford's histories of the Pilgrims to
Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis," followed the
"six elements of the heroic narrative identified by the
Russian Folklorist Vladimir Propp."® The conquest of
America, from New England to "the Great American Desert,"
was recounted in terms of heroic men working to recreate the
Garden. Native Americans presented somewhat of a problem
for writers of the Edenic Narrative. Though most Native
Americans rejected the Edenic Narrative in favor of their
own origin stories, European Americans came to consider
Indians as the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. As a
consequence. Native Americans were urged to share in the
Edenic Narrative by taking up the plow.®
Carolyn Merchant relies on a number of paintings to
demonstrate the key characteristics of the Edenic narrative
during the nineteenth century. Among these are John Gast's
American Progress. Emanuel Leutze's Westward the Course of
Empire Takes its Wav. Domenico Tojetti's Progress of
America. and George Willoughby Maynard's Civilization.
These paintings, along with written texts, illustrate the
role of female nature in the recovery narrative. In
addition, all of them illustrate American progress in terms
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of recreating Eden. Progress is shown as a movement away
from dark, wild nature (populated by savages and wild
beasts), to a light, pristine civilization (represented in
three of the paintings as a white-robed woman). In these
narratives--exemplified by the paintings--both nature and
civilization are feminine. Male farmers and frontiersman
act as a go-between, pushing back the darkness represented
by nature and opening the way for civilization. Though
nature is represented as female in all Edenic narratives.
Merchant points out that it is not always viewed negatively.
. . . [nature's] valence, however, varies from the negative satanic forest of William Bradford and the untamed wilderness of the pioneer (fallen Eve) to the positive pristine Eden and mother earth of John Muir (original and Mother Eve) and the parks of Frederick Law Olmsted. As wilderness vanishes before advancing civilization, its remnants must be preserved as test zones for men (epitomized by Theodore Roosevelt) to hone male strength and skills.
In the four paintings mentioned above, civilization
represents the transformation from the unordered chaos of
wild nature to the order and culture of civilization.
Merchant is careful to note, however, that these paintings
posited a subtext deeply biased against non-Anglos. George
Willoughby Maynard's painting--the embodiment of civili
zation as a white-robed woman--serves as an example : "The
figure's Anglo-Saxon whiteness excludes the blackness of
matter, darkness, and dark-skinned people.
The transformation of wild nature was widely celebrated
in America. However, men began to feel regrets by the end
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of the nineteenth century. Such regrets found expression in
attempts to save wild nature, "as a place for men to test
maleness, strength, and virility, and an apparent
association of men with nature.According to Merchant we
continue to act out the hopes of the recovery narrative in
our optimism and enthusiasm for biotechnology. Post
modernists have grown increasingly critical of the recovery
narrative, but in doing so many simply reverse the plot
structure of the Edenic narrative. Instead of offering an
ascensionist plot, they substitute one of declension,
showing Western Civilization descending from a prior golden
age. Merchant admits that finding alternatives to the
linear plot-line of the Edenic narrative will be difficult.
Indeed, she questions whether it is possible to write non
sequenced, non-linear history. However, she suggests a new
ethic is needed to reduce the more exploitive character
istics of Western culture, and to bring "humans and nonhuman
nature into a dynamically balanced, more nearly equal
relationship.
For John Muir, building a conceptual framework to
understand human history took several decades. The most
important influences were his religiously and physically
rigorous childhood and the two and a half years he spent at
the University of Wisconsin. In the following pages I will
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trace the development of Muir's own narrative of Western
Civilization from childhood through his landmark "botanical
tour" through the Southern United States and his arrival in
California in 1868.
John Muir was born to Anne Gilrye and Daniel Muir in
Dunbar Scotland on the twenty-first of April, 1838. His
father, a devout follower of a Protestant sect led by
Alexander Campbell, left a profitable business in Scotland
and moved his family to the United States in 1849. Along
with his brothers and sisters, John lived and worked on two
farms in the state of Wisconsin before leaving home in early
adulthood. By his own account, life on the farm was a
continuous cycle of dawn-to-dusk labor.
In summer the chores were grinding scythes, feed ing the animals, chopping stove-wood, and carrying water up the hill from the spring on the edge of the meadow, etc. I was foolishly ambitious to be first in the mowing and cradling, and by the time I was sixteen led all the hired men. An hour was allowed at noon for dinner and more chores. We stayed in the field until dark, then supper, and still more chores, family worship, and to bed; making altogether a hard, sweaty day of about sixteen or seventeen hours. Think of that, ye blessed eight-hour-day laborers !
Any spare time in this rigorous schedule was spent in
religious instruction. Under his father's harsh discipline,
John Muir memorized three quarters of the Old Testament and
the entire New Testament before reaching adolescence.
Nonetheless, as he progressed through adolescence, Muir
managed to acquaint himself with many Western classics by
reading on the sly.
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The severe qualities of Muir's upbringing contributed
an important building-block to his conception of progress
and human history. Several historians have noted that his
incessant exposure to hard labor led to powerful creative
impulses in late childhood and early adulthood. Without
plans or formal training he built an unusual variety of
machines and instruments from scraps of wood and metal found
around the farm. Besides barometers and thermometers, there
were a variety of clocks, a self-setting table saw, and an
early-or-late-rising machine (a bed that stood on end at an
appointed hour, and ejected the tardy sleeper).
For the most part, John Muir's inventions were intended
to save time. The purpose of the machines, however, went
beyond such a simple objective. As biographer Linnie Marsh
Wolfe has observed, "John Muir believed in machines as means
of releasing man from drudgery, setting human energies free
for higher development.This belief remained important
to Muir and can be evidenced in his recollections of youth
penned near the end of his life.
Many of our old neighbors toiled and sweated and grubbed themselves into their graves years before their natural dying days, in getting a living on a quarter-section of land and vaguely trying to get rich, while bread and raiment might have been serenely won on less than a fourth of this land, and time gained to get better acquainted with God.
John Muir felt technological improvements would provide the
means to improve the efficiency of agriculture and
manufacturing. But efficiency alone did not constitute
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progress. Mechanical advances allowed people more time for
spiritual actualization and knowledge. From Muir's view the
quest and accumulation of knowledge stood as hallmarks of
civilization. Thus, inventors were essential to progress.
Inventors and mechanics were some of society's most
important members, because they enabled people to know God.
One would be showing high aspirations by becoming an
inventor, but an even higher calling was possible.
John Muir's creations eventually led him away from the
farm. He showed several of them to enthusiastic audiences
at a state fair in Madison, Wisconsin. Experiences there
piqued his interest in the University of Wisconsin and,
within a short while, Muir began taking classes. To advance
his studies he employed two machines. An early-rising
machine ensured he wasted no time in superfluous sleep. He
also constructed a study desk that dispensed and discarded
books at timed intervals--thus preventing the student from
dawdling over any single text for too long.^®
More important than his inventions, Muir discovered the
natural sciences at the University of Wisconsin. During two
and a half years of study, he developed an abiding love for
the disciplines of geology and botany.
Looking back on my college course, the views opened by Chemistry, Physics, Geology, and Botany seemed to me the most useful and wonderful. The attrac tion and repulsion of the atoms composing the globe, marching and retreating--the harmony, the oneness, of all the life of the world, etcetera-- the methods by which nature builds and pulls down
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in sculpturing the globe : one form of beauty after another in endless variety.
Dr. Ezra Slocum Carr initiated Muir in these studies, and
his influence on Muir's thought was profound. Along with
his wife, Jeanne, Dr. Carr gave Muir encouragement and
allowed him access to their personal library. Hailing from
the East, the Carrs brought some of the freshest thought in
the earth sciences and philosophy to the University of
Wisconsin. Ezra Carr transported the ideas of Swiss-born
geologist Louis Agassiz. On both a personal and intel
lectual level, Ezra and Jeanne were acquainted with the
leading New England Transcendentalists.
In her book. Nature and Culture : American Landscape
and Painting. 1825-1875. Barbara Novak discusses the
development, during the nineteenth century, of the idea of
"nature as a holy text." To leading Transcendentalists,
artists, and scientists in America, nature provided a book
by which to know and understand God. The study of science
was especially useful in understanding God, because it
revealed the order with which God imbued His creation.
Through disciplines such as botany and geology, one found
not chaos and disorder, but carefully planned creation.
The impact of these ideas on Muir, as well as a certain awe
for scientists, is expressed in the following letter from
John Muir to Jeanne Carr.
We remember in a peculiar way those who first give us the story of Redeeming Love from the great book of revelation, and I shall not forget the Doctor
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[Ezra Carr], who first laid before me the great book of Nature, and though I have taken so little from his hand, he has at least shown me where those mines of priceless knowledge lie and how to reach them. 0 how frequently. Mrs. Carr, when lonely and wearied, have I wished that like some hungry worm I could creep into that delightful kernel of your house--your library--with its portraits of scient ific men, and so bountiful a store of their sheaves amid the blossom and verdure of your little kingdom of plants, luxuriant and happy as though holding their leaves to the open sky of the most flower-loving zone in the world.
The years at University gave Muir the material to further
develop his conceptions of history and progress. Added to
his belief that the development of inventions represented
progress--because they allowed the acquisition of spiritual
knowledge--he now came to see science as the means to gain a
better understanding of God. If inventors and mechanics
were the blades of progress, then scientists were the
cutting edge. Where the inventor released humans from labor
and allowed time for spiritual discovery, it was the
scientists who revealed God's plans as evidenced in nature.
The Civil War disrupted Muir's studies. In 1864.
convinced he was about to join thousands of other young men
drafted into the Union Army, he fled to Canada and remained
there until 1866. While in Canada, Muir found opportun
ities to engage the knowledge he acquired at the University
of Wisconsin. The following is another extraction from a
letter penned to Jeanne Carr.
What you say respecting the littleness of the num ber who are called to 'the pure and deep communion of the beautiful, all-loving Nature,' is particu
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larly true of the hard-working, hard-drinking, stolid Canadians. In vain is the glorious chart of God in Nature spread out for them. So many acres chopped is their motto, so they grub away amid the smoke of magnificent forest trees, black as demons and material as the soil they move upon. I often think of the Doctor's [Ezra Carr's] lec ture upon the condition of the different races of men as controlled by physical agencies. Canada, though abounding in the elements of wealth, is too difficult to subdue to permit the first few genera tions to arrive at any great intellectual develop ment. In my long rambles last summer I did not find a single person who knew anything of botany and but few who knew the meaning of the word . . .
In the above lines we can see, in nascent form, the
beginning of John Muir's own version of Western Civili
zation's story.
With Carolyn Merchant's Edenic narrative in mind, we
can interpret the above passage as casting the emigration of
people from Europe to the Americas as a lapsarian moment (a
lapse distancing them from The Garden). These humans begin
by clearing the wilderness and, like Cain and Abel, prac
ticing rudimentary forms of cultivation and animal
husbandry. In fact, they are so far fallen that Muir
compares them to demons. Their bodies carry signs of their
Fall in the form of dirt and smoke. Civilization is repre
sented not by the coming of missionaries to convert the
retrograde, but by the coming of science, as represented by
botany. While Muir's passage appears negative, it implies
that progress is imminent. The land will be opened,
inventions made, and civilization will follow.
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Though Muir extensively explored wild country and
indulged his new love for botany in Canada, it was not his
knowledge as a scientist that put bread on the table, but
his skills as a mechanic. While in Canada, he found work in
the factory of William Trout and Charles Jay. Muir's
exceptional talents did not go unused, and he helped improve
efficiency by making adjustments to the partner's machinery.
Though he felt challenged by the work, Muir believed he was
not truly following his calling. He betrayed his uncer
tainties about the importance of his work in a self-
conscious letter written to Jeanne Carr in 1866.
I invented and put in operation a few days ago an attachment for a selfacting lathe which has increased its capacity by at least one third, we are now using it to turn broom handles, and as these useful articles may now be made cheaper, and as cleanliness is one of the cardinal virtues, I congratulate myself in having done something like a true philanthropist for the real good of mankind in general. What say you?^^
The factory of William Trout and Charles Jay burned down in
the process of fulfilling a contract for brooms. Thousands
of brooms went up in flames and, after settling affairs with
the partners, John Muir returned to the United States.
Early in 1866, Muir moved to Indianapolis and began
working as a mechanic for Osgood and Smith, a well-
established carriage company. As in Canada, Muir's
employers soon recognized his exceptional talents both as an
inventor and as an organizer. While working for the
company, Muir helped improve the efficiency of its machinery
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and completed a report identifying wasteful practices. Not
only did he study the efficiency of the factory's organ
ization, he also examined the productivity of the company's
work force. Among other things, he found the workers
increased their productivity when under the direct
observation of a supervisor.^®
As in Canada, career-oriented goals appeared poised to
eclipse the young mechanic's dreams of following a higher
calling. Writing to his sister, Sarah Muir, John expressed
his intent to abandon his earlier plans of becoming a
botanist :
Circumstances over which I have had no control almost compell me to abandon the profession of my choice, and to take up the business of an inven tor . . . unless things change soon, I shall turn my whole mind into that channel.“
The change Muir alluded to, came with unexpected severity.
At the factory, the end of a file struck one of Muir's eyes,
causing permanent damage. Because of a sympathetic reaction
in the uninjured eye, the young inventor found himself
plunged into darkness.®®
The accident caused Muir to reassess his priorities.
For years he had pored over maps of "the Southern States,
the West Indies, South America, and Europe," making plans
for an extensive "botanical journey."®® Immediately after
the accident, he quit work in the factory and rejected a
proposal from Osgood and Smith for a partnership in their
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company. As soon as he recovered health, and his sight, he
embarked on the journey.
Muir made his way on foot through the South, a region
still suffering from the trauma of four years of civil war.
As he travelled, he noticed the effects of war on battered
buildings, torn landscapes, and the wearied faces of the
survivors. He hiked through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia,
down a good portion of Florida to the Gulf of Mexico, and
then gained passage on a ship bound for Havana. Unable to
find a ship to sail to South America, he determined to see
California. To do so, Muir first took passage on a boat
carrying oranges to New York City, then boarded another boat
to the Isthmus of Panama, crossed the Isthmus by railroad,
and caught a ship heading north along the Mexico and
California coasts.
This grand journey proved to be of exceptional import.
In the account of his wanderings, A Thousand-Mile Walk to
the Gulf (assembled from his journals and published
posthumously in 1916), the framework for his understanding
of the human place in nature stands almost complete. A
central feature of this understanding was Muir's direct
identification of nature and wilderness with the Garden of
Eden.
John Muir's equating of nature with the Garden of Eden
was hardly unique. In fact, equating the two was common
among writers and artists in the early part of the
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nineteenth century, most notably the Transcendentalists.
Muir was probably exposed to the description of nature in
terms of an unblemished, pristine garden in conversations
with Ezra and Jeanne Carr. Throughout A Thousand Mile Walk
to the Gulf the aspiring botanist described different
forests in the Southern United States in terms of the Garden
of Eden. He produced the most exemplary description of
nature as a Garden as he made his first rambles in
California.
The sky was perfectly delicious, sweet enough for the breath of angels ; every draught of it gave a separate and distinct piece of pleasure. I do not believe that Adam and Eve ever tasted better in their balmiest nook. The last of the Coast Range foothills were in near view all the way to Gilroy. Their union with the valley by curves and slopes of inimitable beauty. They were robed with the greenest grass and richest light I ever beheld, and were coloured and shaded with myriads of flowers of every hue, chiefly of purple and golden yellow. Hundreds of crystal rills joined song with the larks, fill ing all the valley with music like a sea, making it Eden from end to end.
Though not new. the idea of nature as Garden provided Muir a
premise from which he could draw his own conclusions
concerning the human place in nature.
For the modern reader acquainted with a good sampling
of his work, John Muir appears to possess a fetishistic
fascination with dirt. This fascination may have been a
result of his strict religious upbringing and his Scottish
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heritage. Writing his autobiography, Muir confessed that
these two influences combined to produce gigantic efforts at
mastery over the body.
Like Scotch children in general we were taught grim self-denial, in season and out of season, to mortify the flesh, keep our bodies in subjection to Bible laws, and mercilessly punish ourselves for every fault imagined or committed.^®
John Muir's childhood experience parallels that of many
middle-class peoples living under the severe strictures of
Victorian times. In a study of European culture. The
Politics & Poetics of Transgression. Peter Stallybrass and
Allon White have linked middle-class fascinations with dirt,
or "the low," to such self-discipline. Writing on the
nineteenth century city, they write the following : "As the
bourgeoisie produced new forms of regulation and prohibition
governing their own bodies, they wrote ever more
loquaciously of the body of the Other--of the city's
' scum. '
Though the derivation of Muir's fascination is
interesting, my main purpose here is to understand how Muir
used dirt as a symbol in his writing. In nature, John Muir
found beauty, order, and harmony. These qualities under
scored the fallen condition of humanity and nothing
symbolized this condition so well as dirt. On the human
body, dirt functioned as the mark of the human Fall from
grace. It was a mark all humans bore. This is not to say
dirt was a symbol of democracy. According to Muir's
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observations in the South, civilized people were cleaner and
neater than the uncivilized. In Murphy, North Carolina, he
made the following comments about a house belonging to the
local sheriff.
. . . I found a house decked with flowers and vines, clean within and without, and stamped with the comforts of culture and refinement in all its arrangements. Striking contrast to the uncouth transitionist establishments from the wigwams of savages to the clumsy but clean log castle of the thrifty pioneer.”
In this, Muir's view of progress closely follows the pattern
Carolyn Merchant lays out in her description of the Edenic
narrative. As people became more civilized, they became
cleaner, thus coming closer to the un-soiled state of Adam
and Eve prior to the Fall. Further progress could be
observed in the development of an aesthetic sensibility.
Thus, the sheriff and his wife occupied a higher plane than
the clean but clumsy pioneer.
Lack of dirt corresponded directly with civilization,
but in a less reliable way it also corresponded to class and
race. During his travels in the South, Muir remarked on the
lack of cleanliness exhibited by a poor couple who were kind
enough to offer him food. He described the skin of the man
and woman, both suffering from malaria, as covered with,
"the most diseased and incurable dirt that I ever saw,
evidently desperately chronic and hereditary.'
Similarly, African Americans were often described as
appearing very dirty, although "level of civilization"
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always remained more important to cleanliness than class or
race in Muir's world. In his journal kept during his
crossing of the Isthmus of Panama, Muir compared the Negroes
of Panama with those of the South. He found the former
"much superior to [those] of N[orth] am[erica] in form and
cleanliness." Though his travels to date had been limited
to Canada, New York, the South, and Cuba, he ventured that
he "did not think that the poor of [any] other civ[ilized]
country are half so successful in efforts for clean-
[liness]."*® As for himself, Muir dressed without preten
tion. But even during his wilderness "immersions" he was,
as one acquaintance remembered, "exquisitely neat in his
dress and appearance .
In opposition to the fallen, unclean, state of human
beings stood the pristine natural world. In the Southern
United States, Muir found in the most dangerous wild animals
a purity absent from human beings. Unlike Adam and Eve,
wild animals had not experienced a fall from grace.
Though alligators, snakes, etc., naturally repel us, they are not mysterious evils. They dwell happily in these flowery wilds, are part of God's family, unfallen, undepraved, and cared with the same species of tenderness and love as is bestowed on angels in heaven or saints on earth.
The Fall also affected the animals that humans domesticated :
"Man and other civilized animals are the only creatures that
ever become dirty.Juxtaposing the filth of humans and
their tame animals with the purity of wild animals became
one of Muir's most utilized devices. The following example.
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from his book The Mountains of California (first published
in 1894), contrasts wild and domesticated sheep :
we may observe that the domestic sheep, in a gen eral way, is expressionless, like a dull bundle of something only half alive, while the wild is as elegant and graceful as a deer, every movement manifesting admirable strength and character. The tame is timid; the wild is bold. The tame is always more or less ruffled and dirty; while the wild is as smooth and clean as the flowers of his mountain pasture.
To some extent Muir extended his Edenic metaphor to
cultivated plants. Possibly because of his successful
efforts at fruit ranching, however, he did not describe
domesticated plants as exhibiting, so clearly, the marks of
the Fall.
If John Muir invested woodlands and mountains with the
qualities of a pristine Eden, he portrayed cities as
carrying the dark stigma of Adam and Eve's expulsion. As
with humans, cities could be more or less civilized but in
their essence they provided a perfect antipode to the
Garden. In the course of his journey to the Gulf, and sub
sequent travels in Cuba, New York, and Califiornia, Muir
complained of the conjestion he found. The noise of Havana
particullarly offended his ears, while the mass of humanity
in New York intimidated him. In every case, the chaos of
the city contrasted sharply with the order and harmony of
The Garden.*^
Muir's distrust of cities increased over the years,
demonstrating conflict in his philosophy. How could
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progress be unequivocally good when its offspring included
crowded, poverty-ridden cities? Muir never fully answered
this question. Instead, he continued to understand progress
and civilization as bringing people closer to God. He
refused to associate any of the negative aspects of
industrial growth and scientific advance with progress. In
his later years, when advancing civilization came in direct
conflict with the existence of pristine wilderness, Muir
would not blame progress--in the form of scientific and
technological advance--but would finger old-fashioned vices,
such as greed.
John Muir's equation of wildness and nature with the
Garden of Eden placed him in the company of writers who
questioned the dominant version of the Edenic Narrative
during the nineteenth century. The dominant version, as
outlined by Carolyn Merchant, characterized the advance of
Europeans across the American continent as resulting in the
recreation of Eden--in the guise of carefully cultivated
gardens or farms, and in the apotheosis of civilization:
the city. Though Muir saw many benefits in progress and
civilization, he did not believe people could recreate the
Garden. As fallen mortals, how could they? The Garden was
already created by God. It was tangible in the woodlands of
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the South and North, as well as the mountains of California
and the West.
John Muir's modification of the Edenic Narrative was
unique in its relocation of Garden imagery from cultivated
fields to pristine mountains. Still, he retained the basic
structure of the Edenic Narrative. He celebrated progress
in science and technology and, in a closely related sense,
the advance of civilization. Humans could come closer to
God through progress. In other words, scientific
advancement would enable them to better understand the word
of God. Their nearness to God would be evident in their
relative purity, as opposed to the filth of the "savage."
And yet, humanity could never escape its Fallen state,
except in death, which promised to reunite humans with the
order of God's garden. Consequently, people were always
invaders in those places Muir defined as Eden. They could
enter these places as visitors, as humble pilgrims, but they
could not live in them.
John Muir's version of civilization and progress
exhibited one more unique trait that bears mention. His
work did not glorify the American character. Unlike
Frederick Jackson Turner, John Muir never suggested that the
American Frontier, or wilderness for that matter, produced
anything more unusual than physically and spiritually
healthy individuals.*® John Muir's deep affection for his
native Scotland, and pride in his Scottish heritage, may
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have precluded a need for any notions of American
exceptionalism. Biographer Thurman Wilkins offers the
following grounds for John Muir's flight to Canada during
the Civil War: "the fundamental reason was that he
considered himself more Scottish than American, as indeed he
was (he would not become an American citizen until he was
sixty-five years old) . Self-preservation and pacifistic
leanings probably also had a part, but Muir's consistent
expressions of a pride in his heritage certainly support
Wilkins' statement.
The deep influence of his boyhood in Scotland
distinguished Muir's values from those of many Americans.
As will be discussed in the following chapter, Muir did not
place as much stock in personal independence and freedom, as
he did in the Scottish values of self-discipline and
efficiency.
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A NOTE ON CITATIONS
The following abbreviations are used in citations to primary material: AMs-this abbreviation is used to indicate handwritten manuscripts; TMs-indicates typewritten manuscripts; L-denotes letters. Primary material used in writing this thesis was found in the Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers (1858-1957). edited by Ronald H. Limbaugh and Kirsten E. Lewis, (Alexandria VA: Chadwyck- Healey, 1985). The quoted titles of John Muir's journals, notes, and other papers are supplied with each note and, used in conjunction with the reel number at the end of a specific note, may be quickly found in The Guide and Index to the Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 1858-1957.
1. John Muir, The Yosemite (New York: The Century Co., 1912; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 679.
2. Ibid.
3. Carolyn Merchant, "Reinventing Eden: Western Culture as a Recovery Narrative," in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, paperback edition, edited by William Cronon (New York and London : W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 132-159.
4. Ibid., 133.
5. Ibid.. 134.
6. Ibid., 137.
7. Ibid.. 138.
8. Ibid.. 140.
9. For the purpose of her essay, Carolyn Merchant simplifies European views of Native Americans. Not all nineteenth-century European Americans thought Indians should take up the plow. For those who did, the Edenic Narrative did not provide the only rational for integration. A more thorough treatment of nineteenth-century European views of Native Americans and agriculture may be found in Robert E. Bieder's book. Science Encounters the Indian. 1820-1880 (Norman and London: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1986), 16-45.
10. Merchant, "Reinventing Eden," 147.
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11. Ibid., 149.
12. Ibid., 153.
13. Ibid., 158.
14 . John Muir, Monthly Company, 1912; reprint, Madison and Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), 161-62.
15. For background on Daniel Muir and the family's move to America, I have relied on Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1945; reprint. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 11- 30. For John Muir's memories of rigorous farm life, see John Muir, The Story of rov Boyhood. 175-77.
16. See Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness. 103. Also, see Stephen Fox, John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement (Boston and Toronto : Little, Brown and Company, 1981), 35.
17. Muir, Boyhood and Youth. 201-203.
18. Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness. 103.
19. Muir, Boyhood and Youth. 176.
20. Ibid., 225-27
21. John Muir, "First Draft Autobiography," TMs, ca. 1908, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers (1858-1957). edited by Ronald H. Limbaugh and Kirsten E. Lewis, (Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1985), 46.
22. Frederick Turner, Rediscoyerinq America : John Muir in His Time and Ours (New York: Viking, 1985 ; reprint, San Francisco : Sierra Club Books, 1985), 102-06.
23. Barbara Noyak, Nature and Culture : American Landscape and Painting. 1825-1875 (New York : Oxford Uniyersity Press, 1980), 3-9.
24. John Muir, Trouts Mill, Canada, to Mrs. Jeanne Carr, L, 13 September 1865, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 1.
25. John Muir, "The Hollow" [Canada], to Jeanne Carr, L, 21 January 1866, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 1.
26. John Muir, Canada, to Jeanne C. Carr, L, 21 January 1866, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers, 1.
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27. See Turner, Rediscovering America. 117-20.
28. Ibid.. 123-26.
29. John Muir, Indianapolis, Ind., to Sarah Muir Galloway, L, May 1866, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 1.
30. Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness. 103-04.
31. John Muir, Indianapolis, Indiana, to the Merrills and Moores, Indianapolis, Indiana, L, circa 4 March 1867, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 1.
32. Thurman Wilkins, John Muir: Apostle of Nature (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 45-48.
33. John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, in The Eight Wilderness Dlscoverv Books, introduced by Terry Gifford (Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 119-83.
34. Novak. Nature and Culture. 3-17.
35. Muir, Thousand Mile Walk. 175.
36. Muir, Boyhood and Youth. 105.
37. Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics & Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca, New York; Cornell University Press, 1986), 126.
38. Muir, Thousand Mile Walk. 131-32.
39. Ibid., 134.
40. John Muir, "At Sea; Isthmus of Panama," AMs [Journal], 1868 ca. March 16-18, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 23.
41. Mrs. McChesney, [Sarah J. ?], "Reminiscences of John Muir," TMs, 22 September 1916, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 51.
42. Muir, Thousand Mile Walk. 148.
43. Ibid.. 152.
44. John Muir, The Mountains of California (New York; Century, 1894); reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books (Seattle; The Mountaineers, 1992), 421.
45. For a particularly yivid description of Havanna see the following letter; John Muir, New York, to David Gilrye Muir, L,
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3 March 1868, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 1. Muir's views of New York may be found in A Thousand Mile Walk. 174-75.
46. Frederick Jackson Turner's influential "Frontier Thesis" argued that the demands of the American Frontier resulted in a unique "American character." See Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," Proceedings of the Forty-First Anuunal Meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Madison, Wis., 1894), 79-112.
47. Thurman Wilkins, John Muirs Apostle of Nature (Norman and London : University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 39.
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PROGRESS» THE GARDEN. AND THE WORKING CLASS
Following his arrival in California, John Muir's
convictions concerning human progress intensified, and his
identification of nature with the Garden of Eden acquired
new dimensions. One result of these trends was a deep
alienation between John Muir and working class people. This
alienation was compounded by physical separation : As he
became wealthier and as his reputation as a naturalist grew,
his contacts with working people were limited and delineated
by social conventions. Muir increasingly denigrated working
class people and their role in society, while venerating the
role of elites and championing their interests.
From John Muir's perspective, physical labor was
closely associated with the Pall from Grace. As was
discussed in the preceding chapter, he viewed settlers
clearing the Canadian forests in negative terms. Though
they played a small role in preparing civilization's way.
they were dirty and appeared "demonic." Following his tour
of the South and arrival in California. John Muir came to
clarify his views of labor and the working classes.
John Muir's immersion into the mountains of California
began in 1869 and is recorded in his book. Mv First Summer
In the Sierra. As was mentioned in the opening pages of
39
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this thesis, he spent the summer of 1869 overseeing the work
of a shepherd named Billy for Pat Delaney. During the
course of the season, Muir came to the conclusion that
capitalism was far more injurious to workers like Billy than
to wealthier, better-educated people like Pat Delaney. The
lust for wealth could hinder an owner of sheep from
appreciating the beauty of nature, or its value, except in a
strictly utilitarian sense. On the other hand, the desire
for economic gain would lead the shepherd to indulge in
improbable fantasies of success, ultimately culminating in
insanity.
. . . though [the shepherd is] stimulated at times by hopes of one day owning a flock and getting rich like his boss, he at the same time is likely to be degraded by the life he leads, and seldom reaches the dignity or advantage--or disadvan- tage--of ownership.^
Rather than becoming owner of a flock, the shepherd becomes
trapped in a numbing world of dreary work and isolation:
"Of course his health suffers, reacting on his mind; and
seeing nobody for weeks or months, he finally becomes semi
insane or wholly so.
In 1879, John Muir made the first of several trips to
Alaska. During the course of the journey he visited the
Cassiar gold mines to satisfy curiosity about the region's
geology. His obsevations of miners led him to believe that
the same lust for wealth animating the shepherd also
infected the miner.
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I greatly enjoyed this little inland side trip-- the wide views ; the miners along the branches of the great river, busy as moles and beavers ; young men dreaming and hoping to strike it rich and rush home to marry their girls faithfully waiting; others hoping to clear off weary farm mortgages, and brighten the lives of the anxious home folk; but most, I suppose, just struggling blindly for gold enough to make them indefinitely rich to spend their lives in aimless affluence, honour, and ease.^
In undated draft fragments (ca. 1899), Muir predicted a
wretched end for those who followed the gold siren.
Life is suddenly interrupted & few can splice it again [. . .] go back to old ties & duties merely richer . . . all necessarily changed & if unsuc cessful [,] many[ ] even with families in States[ icreep into corners[,] haunt saloons[,] seeking to kill dullness after fever-gold--since no fierce gold-game is played[,] withdraw like wounded animals into some hollow . . . & waste away their remaining years . . .*
As will be seen, John Muir's view of the impact of
competition on people belonging to the uneducated classes
contrasted sharply with his view of its impact on educated
people.
In itself, menial labor degraded humans. Herding sheep
contributed not only to the degradation of intellectual
faculties, but also to moral and spiritual decay. As will
be remembered. Muir was disgusted by Billy's failure at
personal hygiene and found his lack of appreciation for the
natural beauty of the Sierras disappointing. On one
occasion Muir tried to convince him to hike to "the brink of
the Yosemite for a view." Billy's response could be
described as no more than tepid.
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. . . I pressed Yosemite upon him like a missionary offering the gospel, but he would have none of it. 'I should be afraid to look over so high a wall,' he said. 'It would make my head swim. There is nothing worth seeing anywhere, only rocks, and I see plenty of them here. Tourists that spend their money to see rocks and falls are fools, that's all. You can't humbug me. I've been in this country too long for that.'
Muir's attempts to fill Billy with the proper regard for the
pristine peaks and cliffs around him proved futile. The
young shepherd's sense of esthetics was greatly impaired.
He was "deaf to all stone sermons."®
Though Muir thought herding sheep degraded Billy,
something deeper was at work. It is fair to say that he
thought Billy was unredeemable from the moment of
conception. One may remember Muir's description of the dirt
on a couple in the South as being "hereditary." It is
significant that Muir described people of all social classes
using terms from geology. While Muir depicted the dirt on
Billy as holding "no small geological significance,” he also
described the owner of the sheep using a geologic metaphor.^
. . . [Pat Delaney] is one of those remarkable California men who have been overflowed and denuded and remodelled by the excitements of the gold fields, like the Sierra landscapes by grin ding ice, bringing the harder bosses and ridges of character into relief--a tall, lean, big-boned, big-hearted Irishman, educated for a priest in Maynooth College--lots of good in him, shining out now and then in this mountain light.^
The incessant use of geology to describe people of such
disparate characters and appearances suggests that Muir was
using geology as a way of imposing order on the human
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condition. It also suggests Muir felt human potential was
predetermined by nature. Evidence for such a conclusion may
be found in several of Muir's recollections. At the end of
his summer's work, in 1869, he recorded that Pat Delaney
told him would be "famous some day."® Toward the end of his
life. Muir cast back and remembered his neighbors in
Wisconsin presaging greatness for an awkward and eccentric
farm boy: ". . . [I] had been taught to have a poor opinion
of myself, as of no account, though all our neighbors
encouragingly called me a genius, sure to rise in the
world.
A careful reading of Mv First Summer in the Sierra
indicates that John Muir was neither objective nor fair in
his portrayal of Billy. As the story of the summer
unfolded, a palpable tension grew between the young
preservationist and the even younger shepherd. At heart,
the two would never have felt very comfortable around each
other, simply because their value systems were diametrically
opposed.
Instead of self-discipline and respect for authority,
Billy prized his autonomy, independence, and freedom. As
will be remembered, Pat Delaney employed Muir for one simple
task, "to see that the shepherd did his duty." Outside of
this charge, Muir was almost completely free to wander about
the Sierra. It is reasonable to believe Billy resented both
Pat Delaney and John Muir : Pat Delaney did not trust him.
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and Muir, who was inexperienced at herding sheep, was paid
to do nothing but wander the mountains and report back to
the boss. By the second week in August these resentments
boiled over. One day after arguing "loudly" with Mr.
Delaney over how to properly herd sheep, Billy simply packed
his duffle and "started for the plains.
Billy's mode of departure contradicts Muir's statement
concerning the degrading effects of shepherding. The lure
of wealth hardly held Billy in an isolated subservience to
Pat Delaney. With a choice open to submit to Delaney's
authority and continue making money, Billy chose instead to
reaffirm his autonomy and freedom.
The summer of 1869 inaugurated a five year immersion in
the Sierra for John Muir. Historians recognize these years
as a period of profound intellectual growth for the preser
vationist, culminating in intellectual maturity by the time
he returned to civilization in 1873. During the period
between 1867 and 1873, he established the main tenets of his
preservationist philosophy and unerringly stressed a
biocentric, versus an anthropocentric, view of nature.
Moreover, John Muir soon developed into an eloquent defender
of the Yosemite and of America's remaining forests and
wildernesses.
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He managed to support himself in a number of jobs,
including work in a Yosemite Valley sawmill owned by John
Hutchings. Plenty of time remained for Muir to engage in
more important pursuits--to read exhaustively, hike, and
even write and publish his first article. He also served as
an unofficial guide for many groups of people visiting the
valley. In fact, Muir's five years of withdrawal from
civilization were hardly spent in solitude. As has been
mentioned, the geologist Ezra Slocum Carr profoundly
influenced Muir during the years at the University of
Wisconsin. The promising student established a lasting
friendship and correspondence with the geologist's wife,
Jeanne Carr.
Not long after Muir travelled to California, the Carrs
also relocated to California from Madison. An important
figure in America's literary and intellectual circles,
Jeanne Carr recommended John Muir as a guide to the Sierra
when noted scientists, artists, and writers of the day
visited California. As a result of Jeanne Carr's influence,
Muir led parties from the University of California into the
Sierra and corresponded with prominent scientists such as
Asa Gray and Louis Aggassiz. He also met the eccentric
writer Thérèse Yelverton, who was so taken with Muir that
she based a major character in one of her novels on him.
Through Jeanne Carr, Muir met and formed a strong friendship
with the artist William Keith. Most important, Jeanne Carr
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ensured Muir had an opportunity to travel and converse with
Ralph Waldo Emerson during the summer of 1871. His meeting
and conversations with the famous Transcendentalist remained
among Muir's fondest memories.
The decade of the 1870s marked a period of gradual, but
irreversible, transition for John Muir. The early years
were spent predominantly in the Sierra. As the decade wore
on, however, he moved toward a more settled lifestyle. In
1879 he became engaged to Louisa Strentzel, the daughter of
a wealthy fruit farmer in California's Contra Costa County.
Before marrying, Muir took the first of several trips to
Alaska.
Following his return, John Muir married Louisa and took
over the supervision of the family's large farm. Louisa's
father, John Strentzel, pioneered the cultivation of fruits
and vineyards in California's Alhambra Valley, overseeing
the transition of area farms from less-profitable wheat
production to an agriculture integrated into America's
growing markets. Muir excelled in managing the farm.
Whereas his father-in-law experimented with a wide-variety
of fruit trees and grapes, Muir carefully selected those
species offering the highest return. In addition, he
intensely supervised the farm workers--numbering close to
forty. These workers were Chinese laborers who travelled
from farm to farm, accomplishing a variety of tasks, from
picking pears to packing grapes.
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Muir's dedication to the farm and his growing family
(he and Louisa were parents to two daughters) limited the
amount of time available for writing and for wilderness
travel. However, something more than familial obligation
was involved. Records indicate Muir became obsessed with
the ranch's operations. In letters, his sister Maggie urged
him to hire a foreman so he could travel East and visit with
family in Wisconsin. Neighbors in the nearby town of
Martinez remembered Muir at this time as aloof, unusually
crafty in business, and excessively cheap.
The demands of intensive management led to melancholy
and physical deterioration. While he was on one of his few
trips away from home after taking over ranch operations, his
wife Louisa wrote him and urged a break from the grinding
pace he had set for himself: "Oh, if you could only feel
unhurried and able to rest with no thought of the morrow,
next week, or next month, nor of any vineyards and
Chinaman!"^* With the additional encouragement of his
friends Muir relinquished his hold on the ranch. In 1891,
Muir's sister and brother-in-law--John and Margaret Reid--
rooved from Nebraska to live on the Muir-Strentzel estate. A
few years later, Muir's brother, David, took over management
of the farm's agricultural enterprises. With a penchant for
efficiency similar to Muir's, David coaxed the land to new
heights of production.^®
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John Muir's management of the Strentzel estate
highlights two apparent contradictions between his life and
his philosophy. First, one must wonder how he could square
his beliefs concerning the degrading nature of physical
labor when his own efforts in running the farm were so
physically demanding. As with the shepherd's isolating
work, John Muir felt the demands of farm management degraded
him. Indeed, such a belief led to his relinquishment of
such duties so he could again pursue scientific interests
and literary projects.
John Muir recognized the need to satisfy the mundane
requirements of food and shelter, and he felt strong
familial obligations. However, he also felt he had a higher
calling to follow literary and scientific pursuits.Muir
was proudest of his achievements in the areas of geology and
botany. In describing himself, he conspicuously omitted his
occupation as a farmer. For example, he opened a letter to
his editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, in 1889, explaining
the constraints supervision of farm laborers placed on his
time : "[There are] A horde of oriental heathen besides
Swiss Dutch Irish etc--to look after . . . Several
paragraphs later, when he offered Underwood a general
description of himself, John Muir's time-consuming job as a
farmer was not mentioned. Instead, he styled himself as a
"poetico-trampo-geologist-bot. and ornith-natural,
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etc !- ! - ! For Muir, the exacting demands of farm
management could be justified, but only if the wealth
accrued from them allowed him to take up the higher pursuits
of scientific inquiry and wilderness proselytizing.
A more complex contradiction lies in the fact that John
Muir chose to replace the diversity Dr. Strentzel brought to
the farm with an intensively managed monoculture. The
intensity and thoroughness with which he exploited the farm
seems diametrically opposed to the values of diversity and
wildness he so stridently espoused. In addition, his
fixation with making the farm turn a profit appears
hypocritical in light of later attacks on loggers, ranchers,
farmers, and sheepmen for their greedy exploitation of
National Forest and Park lands. One might ask, "what
differentiated John Muir's exploitation of land in the
Alhambra Valley from the exploitation of mountainous and
forested lands?"
The answer underscores the arbitrary nature of Muir's
definition of pristine wilderness. Simply put, the Alhambra
Valley did not fit his definition of the Garden. His
conception of the Garden was extremely flexible and included
everything from forests of the South, to the mountains of
the Sierra, to the vast tundra of Alaska. However, integral
to all of these was the absence of human manipulation and,
particularly, human habitation.
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As may be remembered, John Muir's version of the Edenic
Narrative deviated from the more common form, outlined by
Carolyn Merchant. In the dominant version, technology and
civilization would lead to the recreation of The Garden in
the form of "civilized" landscapes (orderly farms and
pastoral landscapes dotted with shining, industrial
citiesJohn Muir celebrated civilization and techno
logical progress as avenues to a better understanding of
God ; however, he saw The Garden in pristine wilderness.
Human cultivation and pasturage could have an immense,
though temporary, effect on the Garden, as is shown in John
Muir's book. The Yosemite: "Yosemite was all one glorious
flower garden before ploughs and scythes and trampling,
biting horses came to make its wide open spaces look like
farmer's pasture fields. Though Muir dedicated much of
his energy as a preservationist to fighting this sort of
destruction, he felt nature possessed the power to repair
damage inflicted by humans and their domesticated beasts.
The examples of nature's healing were everywhere evident.
In a Georgian cemetery, during his long walk to the Gulf,
John Muir made the following observation.
Part of the grounds was cultivated and planted with live-oak, about a hundred years ago, by a wealthy gentleman who had his country residence here. But much the greater part is undisturbed. Even those spots which are disordered by art. Nature is ever at work to reclaim, and to make them look as if the foot of man had never known them.
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Once more, we are left with the question of what qualities
separated the Strentzel estate from the meadows of the
Yosemite Valley. If nature could restore both to their
original state, why was the exploitation of one acceptable,
while the other was seen as desecration? The most obvious
difference between the two was not one of physical
characteristic but of purpose. From John Muir's
perspective, the purpose of the Strentzel estate was to
satisfy mundane needs. These included the needs of people
who relied on agricultural produce, and on the needs of John
Muir's family, who relied on profits from the ranch to
maintain a comfortable lifestyle.
The main purpose of Wilderness Gardens was anything but
mundane. In his book, Mv First Summer in the Sierra. Muir
emphatically told his readers that in waters of Yosemite
"God himself is preaching his sublimest water and stone
sermons. " The human touch and the quest to satisfy
mundane needs contaminated the pristine wilderness. In such
a contaminated place, the chance to understand God's plan
was hindered, as was the quest for spiritual actualization.
Exploitation of wilderness lands threatened the spiritual
health of the entire nation more profoundly than the
destruction of a church : "... the hills and groves were
God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn
into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer
seems the Lord himself.
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Following his transfer of the farm's management to his
brother, John Muir embarked on his most productive years of
political and literary achievement. This period began
roughly in 1891, with the publication of his first book. Our
National Forests, and ended in 1914 when he died having
nearly completed the manuscript for Alaska Travels.
Though Muir's literary output during these years was
impressive, his accomplishments in the political arena were
of at least equal significance. In 1892, Muir founded the
Sierra Club. With the help of his editor at Century
Magazine. Robert Underwood Johnson, he pushed for the
establishment of a large federal park to surround the
already existing, but diminutive, Yosemite State Park.
Following success on this issue, he pushed for the reces
sion of the State Park to the federal government for
inclusion in the national park--a goal reached in the year
1905. At the same time, Muir helped promote the
establishment of the large Federal Forest Reserves that
formed the basis of today's national forests. Additionally,
the Sierra Club took an active role in protecting the
integrity of these reserves from the political power wielded
by a variety of agricultural, mining, and lumbering
interests. Finally, Muir led the battle to save Yosemite
National Park's Hetch-Hetchy Valley from being inundated by
a reservoir. The battle was lost in 1913, but Muir's
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efforts provided a foundation for the future defense of
parks and national monuments.^®
The battles John Muir waged at the end of the nine
teenth century and in the dawn of the twentieth century gave
his ideas concerning wilderness a political dimension. In
all respects, however, John Muir's ideas concerning progress
and wilderness remained intact. His advocacy of progress
and his identification of wilderness with the original
Garden shaped his definitions of allies and foes. Moreover,
they determined his selection of an audience for his most
political writing.
A difficult task in any battle is separating friend
from foe. As Muir campaigned to establish and defend the
integrity of Forest Reserves and National Parks, he
implemented a simple set of criteria to identify his
enemies. From his perspective, the political boundaries
around these areas institutionalized his separation of the
mundane world from the spiritual space of the Garden.
Identifying enemies was straightforward. Enemies were those
who would damage, eliminate, or exploit these areas for
mundane purposes. In application, this was not as strict an
identification as one might suppose. Hotels and roads could
be built or retained in these areas under Muir's belief that
they were promoting the spiritual discovery of tourists.
But in another sense, Muir's definitions were very uncom
promising. Mundane activities within Garden areas, no
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matter how long they had supported local livelihoods, were
to be discontinued. Consequently, Muir backed the elimi
nation of logging, hunting, sheepherding, and agriculture
from Forest Reserves and Parks.
In his book, Yosemite; The Embattled Wilderness,
historian Alfred Runte underscores that, in his focus on
eliminating human influences from Yosemite, Muir ignored the
long history of manipulation not only by early settlers, but
Native Americans as well. In many cases, these influences
were key to the existence of those physical features in the
park that Muir celebrated to such a high degree. For
example, human applied fire played a role in the existence
of large meadows crowded with wild flowers.
For Muir, the distinction between friend and foe was
most problematic in terms of corporations and wealthy
individuals. Vital support for Forest Reserves and Parks
came from both sources. Historians admit that Muir's battle
for the establishment of Yosemite National Park depended
heavily upon the support of the Southern Pacific Railroad
and the Hearst family. Just as importantly, John Muir's
notions concerning progress led him to support America's
overarching project of industrialization. Corporate leaders
led the way in this project. By making the world more
efficient, they freed people from the degradation of
physical labor and opened the gates for the advance of
science. On a personal level, Muir admired and identified
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with wealthy individuals because they were educated and
possessed interests beyond those connected with the
necessity to meet the demands of the mundane world.
John Muir's relationship with the railroad magnate,
Edward Harriman. provides an excellent example of his
advocacy of industrialism and its leaders. Muir and
Harriman became acquainted in 1899 when Muir accompanied a
scientific expedition to Alaska sponsored by the railroad
tycoon. In the following years the two became close friends
and allies. Harriman brought his tremendous political
influence to bear when Muir requested help in winning the
recession of Yosemite State Park to the Federal Government.
During the summer of 1908, Harriman instructed Muir, who
always found writing difficult, to come and compose at his
summer home on Klamath Lake. There, Harriman thought, Muir
might focus more effectively. To further facilitate
matters, Harriman ordered his personal stenographer to
follow Muir and record every word he uttered.
Edward Harriman died in 1909, and upon receiving the
news, Muir penned a lengthy tribute. It was wild,
unchecked, and celebratory--an effusive glorification of
Harriman rivaling Muir's most vibrant works on nature.
The greater his burdens, the more formidable the obstacles looming ahead of him, the greater was his enjoyment. He fairly reveled in heavy dynam ical work and went about it as naturally and unweariedly as rivers and glaciers making land scapes : building railroads in wildernesses, improving old ones, straightening curves, lowering grades, laying down thousands of miles of heavy
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Steel, applying safety devices at whatever cost, bringing everybody nearer to one another, making the nation's ways straighter, smoother, safer, more serviceable. The good he did with his roads is far beyond mere philanthrophy f sic 1 . He seemed to regard all the people as partners, setting millions of men to work clearing, ploughing, sow ing, irrigating, mining, building cities and fact ories, and all the benefits derived from his labors in making Nature pour forth her resour ces for the uses of mankind.”^'
Through the course of the tribute, Edward Harriman becomes
John Muir's version of the ultimate mechanic. As may be
remembered from the preceding chapter, Muir believed the
mechanic played the critical role of freeing humans from
labor, allowing them to come closer to God. The most direct
route to God was through science, a guiding light Muir
followed throughout life. Like the mechanic, Harriman
released humans from mundane pursuits, and through his
philanthropy he supported scientific expeditions. Progress
was not easily achieved, but required the efficiency and
drive of Harriman, who "sympathized with his thousands of
employees, paid good wages and studied their welfare, but of
course insisted on that strict discipline which is the only
way to success. . .
Though Muir admired and identified with people like
Harriman, he could not deny that wealthy ranchers and
corporate timber interests posed a direct threat to the
Forest Reserves and National Parks. Examples of this may be
seen in the book Our National Parks (1901).^® Ostensibly a
celebration of the nation's parks, this book also advocated
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the protection of Forest Reserves. The proposal to reserve
forested land in the public domain by creating Forest
Reserves in the West had been hotly contested for years.
Even after Reserve establishment, a number of powerful
ranching, lumbering, and mining interests tried either to
eliminate them or, openly and illegally exploit their
resources. Through the Sierra Club, Muir worked to promote
and protect Forest Reserves.
In Our National Parks. Muir hinted that the "wealthy"
were often responsible for the most heinous abuses of public
lands, and thefts of its resources, but he never ventured to
make specific accusations. A reading of early drafts of Our
National Parks indicates the depth of Muir's inner-conflict
in attacking corporate interests. In one passage from a
draft Muir complains of corporate lumberman and sheepmen
pretending to act in the interest of farmers of small
acreage. According to Muir, these wealthy interests, "set
forth that each and all of the . . . farmers humbly prayed
Congress to deliver them from the disas-trous consequences
of [the establishment of Yosemite National Park] . . . .
Muir asserted corporate interests used common people in all
such battles: "so it is always complaints are made in the
name of poor settlers and miners while the wealthy
corporations are kept carefully in the fuzzy background."*^
By the time Our National Parks went to print, the above
observations were absent. What was left were passages
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characterizing working people in negative terms. suggesting
that they, in fact, posed the greatest threat to Forest
Reserves and National Parks. For example, a transient
woodsworker--the shakemaker--personified corruption, greed,
and irresponsibility. The shakemaker operated indepen
dently, felling and splitting shingles out of huge sugar-
pines.
Happy robbers! dwelling in the most beautiful woods, in the most salubrious climate, breathing delightful odours both day and night, drinking cool living water--roses and lilies at their feet in the spring, shedding fragrance and ringing bells as if cheering them on in their desolating work. There is none to say them nay. They buy no land, pay no taxes, dwell in a paradise with no forbidding angel either from Washington or from heaven.
In the case of squatters and ordinary lumberman, Muir
created another image. These, he suggested, were brutish
people, laboring through lives one could hardly imagine
worth living.*^ Muir's portrayals suggest he found it
easier to attack the corporate pawns than the corporations
themselves. His deeply established biases against the
laboring classes, and advocacy of industrial progress, would
have made it far more palatable to do so.
The extent to which laborers were the pawns of
corporate interests is beyond the scope of this paper.
However, it is clear that John Muir's observations led him
to believe working people, and rural working people in
particular, were less likely to appreciate nature than were
wealthy urban tourists. People like Billy were completely
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hopeless. But even in those rare instances when a laborer
demonstrated an innate love of nature, he or she could never
presume to understand and appreciate it at a level open to
those who had both time and education. As an example, when
Muir travelled to the Cassiar gold mines in 1879, he met a
miner whose "love for birds and flowers marks him sharply
among his companions. Muir had the opportunity to travel
with the miner, Mr. Le Claire, and weathered a storm in his
cabin. He admired "the finest respect" with which Le Claire
picked and handled a blue forget-me-not. Though kind.
Muir's assessment of Le Claire's interest in plants and
animals was nonetheless condescending: "Le Claire's simple.
childlike love of nature, preserved undimmed through a hard
wilderness life, was delightful to see. The miner fed
birds and animals near his cabin. He also held an
appreciation for the Alaskan landscape, but he did not
possess the depth of knowledge characteristic of the
scientifically trained.
Long before meeting Le Claire, John Muir had identified
the people who would most likely form a deep appreciation
for nature. Though they often came to the valley ignorant of
nature's wonders, tourists visiting Yosemite from
California's urban areas had both the time and aesthetic
sensibility necessary for a proper appreciation of the Park.
We saw another party of Yosemite tourists today. Somehow most of these travellers seem to care but little for the glorious objects about them, though enough to spend time and money and endure long
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rides to see the famous valley. And when they are fairly within the mighty walls of the temple and hear the psalms of the falls, they will forget themselves and become devout. Blessed indeed, should be every pilgrim in these holy mountains !
Experience with rural people, like the shepherd Billy, led
Muir to grow increasingly pessimistic about their
receptiveness to his wilderness gospel. On the other hand,
his optimism about urban people increased. In books such as
The Mountains of California (1894), Our National Parks
(1901), and The Yosemite (1912), the reader can trace an
broadened emphasis on tourism. In The Mountains of
California. John Muir occasionally mentions sites "pleasure
seekers" might be interested in visiting. To a heightened
degree, the same is true in Our National Parks.
In his book. The Yosemite. Muir provided detailed
descriptions of all the valley's wonders, offered mountain
climbing advice, described the area's flora and fauna, and
listed the valley's most popular and impressive attractions.
He even included detailed descriptions of hotel and camp
accommodations. In all dimensions the book fits the
requirements of a tourist guide--though dignified by keen
nature observations and an undercurrent of wilderness
For working people. John Muir's vision suggested
anything but a vacation. According to historian Samuel
Hays, trips to National Parks and Forest Reserves were
beyond the means of working-class people during the first
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decades of the twentieth century and required more free time
than was available to them. For rural working people,
Muir's vision of huge tracts of land maintained in a
pristine state for the spiritual and recreational ful
fillment of urban elites could hardly have been promising.
If work as a shepherd or shakemaker was hard, it at least
afforded a measure of freedom and independence. As John
Muir somewhat unconsciously pointed out, tourism relegated
workers to a more subservient position : "Happy nowadays is
the tourist with earth's wonders, new and old, spread
invitingly open before him, and a host of able workers as
his slaves making everything
easy . .
The conception of huge sections of lands set aside
essentially for aesthetic, religious, and recreational
purposes represented a major departure in Western lands
policy. As historian Clayton Koppes has observed, during
the nineteenth century the Homestead Act served as an
important institution for economic equality.^® As long as
Western lands were available to homesteading, people could
aspire to land ownership. To be sure, the establishment of
Forest Reserves at the close of the twentieth century did
not preclude homesteading. However, for those who did not
yet own land, an implicit threat existed. Nowhere was that
threat more explicitly expressed than in John Muir's
philosophy--a philosophy that Muir applied equally to Parks
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and Forest Reserves. As president of the Sierra Club, Muir
issued the following resolution.
Be it resolved that this Club is unalterably opposed to the reduction of the area of any forest reservation. We believe that the interests of the people require that these reservations be extended rather than diminished even to the extent of prohibiting the sale to private parties of any por tion of forest land included in the public domain.
What is important to note is that John Muir's vision for
these lands would completely preclude homesteading--
essentially replacing a democratic institution with one
dedicated to recreation and spiritual growth. On an
economic level, recreation in these parks was available only
to those of comparative affluence. The spiritual benefits
of the parks were accessible to the esthetically receptive :
a predisposition Muir believed was more likely to be found
in the urban tourist than in the uneducated worker.
In the end, his vision for the Forest Reserves was
supplanted by that of conservationists--most notably,
Gifford Pinchot--who advocated multiple use of the resources
in the reserves. In comparison to Muir, Pinchot's philo
sophy contained strong democratic currents. Where Muir
attacked lumber corporations and lumberman for destroying
the Garden, Pinchot attacked the inequitable accumulation of
capital represented by the sheer size of the lumber
corporations. According to Clayton Koppes, Pinchot saw
public ownership of forested land as "essential to prevent
further monopolization of resources.
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In summary, John Muir believed in human progress
through mechanical and scientific advance. However, as a
writer at the end of the nineteenth century, he was
confronted with the results of America's accelerated
industrialization and urbanization. For Muir, the most
important of these was the disappearance of untouched
pristine wilderness, areas that he identified with the
Garden of Eden.
Faced with immediate threats to the existence of areas
he found essential to spiritual health and growth, John Muir
provided a simplistic critique of society that avoided key
questions concerning modernity. To Muir, the destruction of
America's primeval forests was not related to the growing
demands of booming nineteenth century cities, and certainly
not to the scientific and mechanical advances that made this
boom possible. Threats to the National Parks and Forest
Reserves were simply part of the eternal battle between good
and evil.
. . . long ago a few enterprising merchants util ized the Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead of a place of prayer, changing money, buy ing and selling cattle and sheep and doves; and earlier still, the first forest reservation, including only one tree, was likewise despoiled. Ever since the establishment of the Yosemite Nati onal Park, strife has been going on around its bor ders and I suppose this will go on as part of the universal battle between right and wrong, however much its boundaries may be shorn, or its wild beauty destroyed."
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John Muir's vision for National Parks and Forest Reserves
sounded democratic: "Everybody needs beauty as well as
bread, places to play and pray in, where Nature may heal and
cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike. In
his writing, however, Muir showed deep bias against urban
and rural working-class people. He denied labor a signi
ficant role in the progress of civilization, and he
denigrated laborers. By attributing their position in
society to personal inferiority, he avoided any layered
analysis of the social problems facing America in the early
twentieth century. From a practical perspective, his vision
did not offer places to play and pray in for everyone, but
for an urban population with the means and time to make the
trip to a National Park or Forest Reserve.
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1. John Muir, Mv First Summer in the Sierra (Boston and Constable, London : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 198.
2. Ibid.
3. John Muir, Travels in Alaska (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1915; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 760.
4. John Muir, "Days of Gold: Old Miners," Draft fragment [ca. 1899], AMs, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 43.
5. Muir, Mv First Summer. 244.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 237-238.
8. Ibid., 269.
9. Ibid.. 283.
10. John Muir, The Story of mv Boyhood and Youth. (The Atlantic Monthly Company, 1912 ; reprint, Madison and Milwaukee ; The University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), 208.
11. Ibid., 265.
12. The exact dates of Muir's intellectual maturation are arbitrary. Dennis Williams cites the dates of 1866-1873 as being the most formative: See Dennis Williams, "John Muir, Christian Mysticism and the Spiritual Value of Nature," in John Muir : Life and Work, ed. Sally M. Miller (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993) 83-84. Frederick Turner considers Muir's five years in the Sierra [1869-1873] as being, "the most significant portion of Muir's intellectual and spiritual life." Frederick Turner, Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours (New York; Viking, 1985 ; reprint, San Francisco : Sierra Club Books, 1985), 183.
13. Linnie Marsh Wolfe's biography. Son of the Wilderness; The Life of John Muir, is especially good in describing Muir's interaction with leading intellectuals and scientists at this time. Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness; The Life of John Muir (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1945 ; reprint, Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 129-181.
14. See John Muir, "Autobiographical Sketches : From Leaving University to About 1906," TMs, ca. 1908, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers (1858-1957). edited by Ronald H. Limbaugh
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66
and Kirsten E. Lewis, (Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1985), 45. For Muir's meeting with Emerson, see Turner, Rediscovering America. 213-215.
15. Turner, Rediscovering America. 220-63.
16. For general information on the history of Alhambra Valley agriculture and specific information about Dr. John Strentzel's and John Muir's role in its development see Steve M. Burke et. al. , Martinez Adobe : John Muir National Historic Site. California. Structure Report (Denver: U.S. Dept, of the Interior, National Park Service, Denver Service Center, August 1992), 25-27. Both Turner, Rediscovering America. 270, and Thurman Wilkins, Apostle of Nature (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 159-168, offer insight into Muir's managerial qualities. For references to worker's see [Louie Strentzel Muir], to John Muir, L, September 1885, Microfilm Edition of the John Muir Papers. 12.
17. See Margaret Muir Reid, Crete, Nebraska, to John Muir, L , 4 July 1885, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 5.
18. For the reaction of neighbors see P. J. Ryan "The Martinez Years: The Family Life and Letters of John Muir," in The World of John Muir, ed. Lawrence R . Murphy and Dan Collins (Stockton, California: University of the Pacific, 1981), 80. Also, see Wilkins, John Muir. 160.
19. Louie Strentzel Muir, Martinez, California, to John Muir, L, 28 August 1885, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 5.
20. Burke, Martinez Adobe. 31-32.
21. Stephen Fox, John Muir and his Legacy: The American Conservation Movement (Boston & Toronto : Little, Brown, and Company, 1981), 72-99.
22. Ibid.
23. John Muir, Martinez, California, to Robert Underwood Johnson, L, 13 September 1889, Microfilm Edition of the John Muir Papers. 6 .
24. Ibid.
25. Merchant, "Reinventing Eden : Western Culture as a Recovery Narrative," in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. paperback edition, edited by William Cronon (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 147-53.
26. John Muir, The Yosemite (New York: The Century Co., 1912): reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books (Seattle : The
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Mountaineers, 1992), 671.
27. John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 139.
28. Muir, Mv First Summer. 260.
29. Ibid., 243-44.
30. For background on the politics of management in Yosemite, I have referred to Alfred Runte, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness (Lincoln and London : University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 5-99. For a very readable treatment of Muir's activities in the political arena, see Wilkins, Apostle of Nature. 169-252.
31. John Muir, The Yosemite. 706. Also, John Muir, Steep Trails (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1918 ; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 999-1000.
32. See Alfred Runte, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness (Lincoln and London ; University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 57-66.
33. Ibid.
34. For information on the establishment of Yosemite National Park see Turner, Rediscovering America. 284-287. See pages 330 and 331 for Harriman's role in the recession of Yosemite State Park to the Federal government.
35. For Harriman's influence on recession see Turner, Rediscovering America. 331. Muir's account of his stay at Pelican bay is in John Muir, "Edward Henry Harriman," [Incomplete Draft of Edward Henrv Harriman (New York, 1911)], TMs, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 47.
36. Muir, "Edward Henry Harriman," Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 47.
37. Ibid.
38. John Muir, Our National Parks (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1901; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 591-605.
39. A summary of Forest Reserve history may be found in Harold K. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service « A History (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1976), 26-34. The Muir papers contain documents demonstrating the Sierra Club's role in
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defending the Forest Reservations. See John Muir, "Cascade Forest Reservation Resolution," TMs, 1896, in selections from the Sierra Club Papers, 1896-1913, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 51.
40. John Muir, "The National Parks and Forest Reservations," AMs, ca. 1897, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 42.
41. Ibid.
42. Muir, Our National Parks. in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. 601.
43. Ibid., 469-470.
44. John Muir, "From Wrangell up Stickeen, 2d trip to Cassiar mines," Journal, 1879 ca. August 5-28, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 25.
45. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 759.
46. Ibid., 228.
47. John F . Sears stresses the genteel character of nineteenth- century tourism in Sacred Places : American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 10-12.
48. Samuel Hays, Beauty Health and Permanence : Environmental Politics in the United States. 1955-1985 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 35.
49. Muir, Steep Trails. 999
50. Clayton R. Koppes, "Efficiency, Equity, Esthetics : Shifting Themes in American Conservation," in The Ends of The Earth; Perspectives on Modern Environmental History, ed. Donald Worster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; reprint, 1989), 235.
51. Muir, "Cascade Forest Reservation Resolution."
52. Koppes, "Efficiency, Equity, Esthetics," 235.
53. Muir, The Yosemite. 714.
54. Ibid.
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THE SAVAGE AND THE CIVILIZED: JOHN MUIR'S PERCEPTIONS
OF NATIVE AMERICANS
In 1879 John Muir found himself accompanying the
missionary S. Hall Young to a village of Hoona Indians on
Admiralty Island, Alaska. As the prows of their canoes cut
through the surf, one of their Native guides raised a United
States flag to answer another being raised next to the
chief's house on the shore. Hall's party, which included
several Native guides, was warmly received in the village.
After eating lunch, S. Hall Young delivered his usual
missionary sermon to the gathered Indians. At chief
Kashoto's request, Muir also gave a speech to the Hoonas.
Indicative of his growing comfort with the Indians of
Alaska, Muir's speech contained a good measure of humor.
I told them that in some far-off countries, instead of receiving the missionaries with glad and thankful hearts, the Indians killed and ate them; but I hoped, and indeed felt sure, that his people would find a better use for missionaries than putting them, like salmon, in pots for food.^
During his travels, Muir enjoyed the sense of humor
displayed by Native Alaskans as well. He disliked the
killing of wild animals and, when on the water, often
prevented his guides from shooting ducks by rocking the
canoe.^ But Muir could not help smiling at the light-
69
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hearted antics of two of his guides when they retrieved a
slain fowl;
Chief Kadachan and John amused themselves in throwing stones plashingly near him [the waves washing the duck towards shore]. and while pull ing on . . . [John's] shirt Kadachan took the duck and teased him by opening the duck's bill and pinching him with it.^
Nevertheless, John Muir was not always comfortable around
Native Americans. In this chapter I will explore some of
the attitudes he expressed toward different tribes in Alaska
and in the States. To do so, I will once again look for the
roots of Muir's beliefs in the recovery narrative of Western
civilization.
In her essay, "Reinventing Eden: Western Culture as a
Recovery Narrative," Carolyn Merchant discussed the Edenic
Narrative's role in shaping "Euramerican" perceptions of
Native Americans,
The heroic recovery narrative that guided settle ment is notable for its treatment of Indians. Wilderness is the absence of civilization. Although most Euramericans seemed to have per ceived Indians as the functional equivalent of wild animals, they nevertheless believed the Indian survivors had the potential to be 'civi lized' and hence to participate in the recovery as settled farmers. American officials changed the Indians' own origin stories to make them descendants of Adam and Eve; hence they were not indigenous to America.^
Merchant suggests that in the mosaic of Euramerican culture,
two sharply divergent visions of Native Americans coexisted.
That is, European Americans saw Native Americans both as
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Wild animals and as distinctly human--the sons and daughters
of Adam and Eve.
Carolyn Merchant states that Euramericans considered
Native Americans "the functional equivalent of wild
animals." Surprisingly, such an idea possessed positive
connotations for many Europeans and European Americans.
Romantic writers in both Europe and America celebrated the
primitive throughout the nineteenth century.® In the
European literature, and the writing of James Fenimore
Cooper, Native Americans became "noble savages," admired for
their closeness to nature. In novels, their lack of
"civilization" was often associated with a morality superior
to that of Europeans.®
There were also negative aspects to identifying Indians
with wild animals. They could be seen as sub-human
savages--violent, uncivilized, and undisciplined. This view
helped justify the outright killing of Native Americans and
the dispossession of their lands. It should be noted,
however, that categorizing Native Americans as "savages" did
not automatically mean that the speaker considered them
animals. Many nineteenth century European Americans used
the term "savage" to describe an inferior type of human
being. According to historian Donald Worster, people
holding such a perception believed Indians were "so backward
that it was impossible to integrate them into civilized
society.
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John Muir's first experiences with Native Americans
occurred during his family's years tilling the Wisconsin
soil. These contacts were of a fleeting nature, and his
impressions of them were recorded at too late a date to be
accepted without question. I hold, therefore, that his first
significant contacts with Native Americans did not occur
until maturity, after his arrival in California. John
Muir's book, Mv First Summer in the Sierra, opens a window
to the impact these meetings had on the formation of his
attitudes.
At the beginning of their summer of sheepherding, John
Muir and Billy were accompanied by a Digger Indian and a
Chinese driver. Muir only referred to the Chinese driver
once and betrayed no particular interest in him. Although
he never furnished, or possibly never learned, the Digger
Indian's name, Muir was intrigued by him. Toward the outset
of the trip in June of 1869, the party of drivers and
shepherds camped near the Sierra foothills and Muir
commented of the Indian, "[He] kept in the background,
saying never a word, as if he belonged to another species."®
Later in the month, Muir compared Native Americans to
animals: "Indians walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly
more than the birds and squirrels, and their brush and bark
huts last hardly longer than those of wood rats . . . "*
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Though some readers might squirm at Muir's association
of Native Americans with wild animals, it is apparent in the
above passages that he felt the association was positive.
This view was actually unique to Muir, for he held an
appreciation for wild animals and their rights as fellow
beings that was shared by very few of his contemporaries.
He once went so far as to conjecture that, "if a war of
races should occur between the wild beasts and Lord Man. I
would be tempted to sympathize with the bears.In the
case of Indians, however, one could stretch the uniqueness
of Muir's view too far. His identification of Indians with
animals made them natural inhabitants of the landscape, a
notion that corresponded closely with the popular European
and American ideal of Indians as noble savages.
Like the American populace at large, Muir remained
divided internally between different conceptions of Native
Americans. Following his summer of sheepherding, he sent a
letter to his brother, David, and used an image of savage
Indians and grizzly bears to make his summer appear more
treacherous than it probably wass "Bro. Dave : I have
escaped the vindictive paws of the Pi-Ute Indians, and
grizzly bears . . . I have a dozen grizzly bear stories to
tell you [when we meet in person].
Nonetheless, encounters with Native Americans also
offered Muir a way to interpret Native Americans as fully
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human, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. One day in
mid-June, an Indian woman stopped at the sheepherders' camp,
possibly on her way to gather edible plants in the high
country. As he studied the woman, Muir came to the
conclusion that, indeed, Indians were human. Looking at the
deeply-soiled calico dress she wore, he thought how strange
it was that "mankind alone is dirty.If the dirt gave
the woman some sort of nominal status in the human race,
however, it also alienated her from the natural world.
Had she been clad in fur, or cloth woven of grass or shreddy bark, like the juniper and libocedrus mats, she might then have seemed a rightful part of the wilderness ; like a good wolf at least, or bear. But from no point of view that I have found are such debased fellow beings a whit more natural than the glaring tailored tourists we saw that frightened the birds and squirrels.
It is important to remember that, for Muir, dirt was
physical evidence of the human Fall from Grace. Although
his assessments seem denigrating, they also made Native
Americans familiar to him. They were not frightening or
exotic. They were not much different than Billy or the poor
people he had met in the South.
It would be a mistake to conclude that John Muir's
attitude towards Native Americans followed a straight
evolutionary path. As mentioned above, Carolyn Merchant
characterized Euramericans during the nineteenth century as
seeing Native Americans as both wild animals and as the sons
and daughters of Adam and Eve. So it was with John Muir; he
tended to collect attitudes toward Native Americans rather
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than advance cleanly from one attitude to the next. In the
following observations, made in August, 1869, one can detect
a struggle occurring within Muir over the naturalness of
Native Americans.
A strangely dirty and irregular life these dark eyed, dark-haired, half happy savages lead in this clean wilderness--starvation and abundance, death like calm, indolence, and admirable, indefatigable action succeeding each other in stormy rhythm like winter and summer. Two things they have that civil ized toilers might well envy them--pure air and pure water. These go far to cover and cure the grossness of their lives.
Though Muir would not completely abandon his view of Native
Americans as natural inhabitants of the wilderness, he more
consistently found Indians in the United States to be either
savages or humans "not a whit more natural in their lives
than we civilized whites. Inclusion in the fellowship of
man meant, however, that Native Americans carried the stigma
of the Fall. It followed that Native Americans engaged in
subsistence activities were as incongruous in John Muir's
Garden Temples as were shepherds and shakemakers.
By far the closest and most continuous contact John
Muir enjoyed with Native Americans occurred during his
various adventures in Alaska. As with his first summer of
sheepherding, John Muir's first extensive wanderings in
Alaska, during 1879, provided his most brilliant impressions
of both Alaskan landscapes and their native inhabitants. He
delayed his marriage to Louisa Strentzel to take the trip.
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and along with another excursion to Alaska immediately
following their marriage, it marked the end of true
wilderness immersions for the preservationist.
Several historians have understood Muir's trip to
Alaska in 1879 as a watershed event. Richard Fleck, in his
book Henry Thoreau and John Muir among the Indians, proposes
that Muir came to a profound understanding of Indian
cultures at this time : "[Muir] would evolve and change from
his somewhat ambivalent stance toward various Indian
cultures to one of positive admiration after he overcame
culture shock.From my perspective. Fleck makes a
critical mistake in treating John Muir's attitude toward
Native Americans as following a neat evolutionary path.
While it is true that John Muir formed an appreciation for
the culture of Alaskan Indians, it is equally evident that
he never abandoned his negative attitudes toward Native
Americans as a whole. Long after his trips to Alaska, he
continued to see Indians as both savages and as depraved
human beings bearing the marks of the Fall. Moreover, his
appreciation of Native Alaskan culture was essentially
patron!zing--in Muir's mind. Western science, culture,
technology and religion remained the pinnacle of human
ambition and achievement.
Evidence supporting the assertion that Muir's attitudes
toward Native Americans did not evolve in a linear fashion
may be garnered from a quick sampling of his publishing
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history. In writing books, Muir relied heavily on the
detailed journals he kept throughout his life. Though he
made stylistic and grammatical revisions, the books retained
the flavor and the essential content of the journals.
A comparison of unedited journals (for 1879) and Muir's
work. Travels in Alaska. published in 1915, show no
significant alteration in the representations of gold miners
or Alaskan Indians. Though Muir's original journals for his
summer of sheepherding no longer exist, early drafts of Mv
First Summer in the Sierra. 1911, indicate his finished work
was also an accurate reflection of original perceptions and
experiences. It is possible the author wished to provide an
authentic, unedited, portrait of himself at various stages
in life. In the case of Native Americans, he thus retained
grotesquely-biased characterizations even though he had
supposedly come to a much more profound understanding of
them. I find it more plausible to believe Muir's views of
Native Americans were not substantially different between
journal entry and book publication. That is, they had not
evolved enough to give him the conviction necessary to
revise his work and portray Native Americans in a more
favorable light.
Muir's book recording his Alaska expedition. Travels in
Alaska. is based almost completely on the journals he kept
at the time. As in Mv First Summer of the Sierra. Muir's
initial impressions of the people he met in Alaska were
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gauged by their levels of cleanliness. Observing Indian
women and children at store-frents in Wrangell village» Muir
wrote, "every other face [was] hideously blackened, a naked
circle around the eyes, and perhaps a spot on the cheek-bone
and the nose where the smut had been rubbed off."^®
The reader anticipates that Muir will categorize the
Alaskan Indians in the same manner as he had poor whites and
California Indians. However, as he continued to travel it
was the naturalness and cleanliness of Alaskan Indians that
began to strike Muir. In his descriptions of the landscape,
Native Americans fit in as naturally as any wild animal.
The warm air throbs and makes itself felt as a life-giving, energizing ocean, embracing all the landscape, quickening the imagination, and bring ing to mind the life and motion about us--the tides, the rivers, the flood of light streaming through the satiny sky; the marvellous abundance of fishes feeding in the lower ocean ; the misty flocks of insects in the air ; wild sheep and goats on a thousand grassy ridges ; beaver and mink far back on many a running stream ; Indians floating and basking along the shores; leaves and crystals drinking in the sunbeams; and glaciers on the mountains, making valleys and basins for new rivers and lakes and fertile beds of soil.
For the most part, Muir found the Indians of Alaska cleaner
than the Indians he had met in California. Despite the cold
temperatures, he noticed these Indians bathed on a
comparatively frequent basis.Moreover, he admired the
attention his guides paid to personal grooming when they
neared a village of the highly respected Chilcat Indians.
Muir found other indications that the Native Americans
of Alaska differed not only from the Indians of California
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but also from European Americans. It was not just that the
Indians were cleaner, but so were their animals. During his
1881 trip to Alaska, Muir characterized the Chukchi's
reindeer in a way that contrasted dramatically with his
descriptions of befouled domestic sheep : "[The reindeer]
seem as smooth and clean and glossy as if they were wild.
Taming does not seem to have injured them in any way. I saw
no mark of man upon them.
Still, John Muir was wary of denying Indians membership
in the human race. At the village of Kake Indians, Muir
recorded the reaction of a child to the sermon of his
missionary friend, S. Hall Young;
A little girl, frightened by the strange exer cises, began to cry and was turned out of doors. She cried in a strange, low, wild tone, quite un like the screech crying of the children of civili zation .
It is significant that Muir did not characterize the child's
cry as resembling that of a wild animal. The most important
thing distinguishing this child from other children was her
lack of civilization. Consequently, it appears the author
categorizes the girl as a human, as opposed to a sub-human,
savage. But Muir did not feel comfortable calling Native
Alaskans "savages," as can be seen in his following
description of the Chukchis.
The Chukchis seem to be good-natured, lively, chatty, brave, and polite people, fond of a joke, and, as far as I have seen, fair in dealings as any people, savage or civilized. They are not savage by any means, however, but steady, indust rious workers . .
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The above passage encourages the reader to conclude that the
Chukchis were civilized. However, as will be demonstrated,
Muir was not ready to accord Alaskan civilization a status
commensurable to that of the Western world.
Accepting Alaskan Natives as fully civilized human
beings--independent of any Western influence--threatened the
foundations of Muir's philosophy and the Christian
iconography upon which his wilderness ideals were built. If
he accepted the premise that all people descended from
Fallen Adam and Eve, he must also accept that they all
exhibited the marks of the Fall, alienating them from the
original Garden. However, John Muir found the marks of the
Fall absent among the Alaskan Natives, except in those
villages where they had been exposed to the products and
vices of civilization (for example, alcohol and
alcoholism) .
Two logical options were open to Muir. He could
unambiguously place Native Alaskans in the company of
innocent animals, or he could shift the foundations of his
philosophy and blame civilization rather than innate human
faults for the corruption of individuals. The second option
would necessarily replace notions of original sin : humans
would be born innocent and would remain so until corrupted
by civilization. It should not be surprising that Muir
would reject such a notion. His faith in the advance of
Western Civilization, and his deeply held belief in original
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sin, prevented him from accepting that human corruption owed
its existence to civilization.
Logic also prevented John Muir from unequivocally
separating Native Americans from the rest of humanity and
placing them in the animal world. They were simply too much
like himself. Looking at a group of Chukchi boys in 1881,
Muir felt "that there was a response in their eyes which
made you feel that they were your very brothers."^®
Muir found a way out of this dilemma by understanding
Alaskan Natives as children. In doing so, he was utilizing
a well-worn European conception of Native Americans.
Indeed, the identification of Indians with children dates
back to early encounters between the Spanish and Native
Americans. Such an identification was popular with Spanish
friars. Portraying the Indians as children helped sanction
and support their continuing presence in New Spain as
protectors of the Indians against exploitation and
depredation at the hands of secular Spaniards.In the
second half of the nineteenth century, the word "child"
provided a close synonym for the Indian's "official"
position in relationship to the Federal government: In
nineteenth century documents, the government was "guardian”
of its Native American "wards.
For John Muir, characterizing Native Alaskans as
children allowed him to set aside concerns over the
deleterious impacts of civilization. It also helped resolve
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the issue of original sin. The innocence of children is a
well-known tenet of Christianity and one that meshed well
with both the physical cleanliness and the moral superiority
John Muir found in Alaskan Natives.
A study of the different Eskimo faces, while impor tant trades were pending, was very interesting. They are better behaved than white men, not half so greedy, shameless, or dishonest. I made a few sketches of marked faces. One, who received a fathom of calico more than was agreed upon, seemed extravagantly delighted and grateful. He was lost in admiration of the Captain, whose hand he shook heartily.
Like the miner Le Claire, the Alaskan Natives possessed a
particularly innocent, if unsophisticated, love of nature.
During his first visit to Alaska, Muir and his Indian guides
gathered around a campfire in the evening. As they sat a
distance from the flames, Muir noted the guides' interest in
the stars : "the brightness of the sky brought on a long
talk with the Indians about the stars ; and their eager,
childlike attention was refreshing to see . .
From John Muir's perspective, the culture of Native
Americans also supported his understanding of them as
children, especially in comparison with European Americans.
In every area where he compared the two, he found the
civilization of Native Americans at least somewhat inferior
to that carried by European Americans. More precisely, he
usually compared their level of civilization favorably to
that of the lowest classes of European Americans--leaving
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implied the conclusion that they did not belong in the
vanguard of civilization.
One measuring stick Muir used to evaluate the
sophistication of civilization was that of superstition.
Muir's education and his religious upbringing both stressed
the value of rational thought and the scientific method.
As a consequence, he held superstition incompatible with
civilization. During his walk through the Southern States
he treated the superstition of an African American in the
South in a jocular but condescending manner. John Muir
found absolutely intolerable any such irrationality among
educated European Americans. During his early years in
California, he had been tricked into attending a seance. He
refused to participate and, before leaving, took the time to
ridicule the people involved in conjuring up spirits.
Alaskan Indians, Muir found to his pleasure, were compar
atively free of such superstition.
Though all the Thlinkit tribes believe in witch craft, they are less superstitious in some respects than many lower classes of whites. Chief Yana Taowk seemed to take pleasure in kicking the Sitka bones that lay in his way, and neither old nor young showed the slightest trace of supersti tious fear of the dead at any time.
In matters religious, the Native Alaskans held beliefs
similar to Muir's. Overall, their view of the world in
biocentric terms complimented his own views of nature and
buttressed his repeated attacks on anthropocentrism.
Nevertheless, Muir's travels with S. Hall Young were part of
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a missionary effort, and despite his respect for specific
Native American traditions, he never questioned the ultimate
goal of converting them to Christianity.^^
As much as science, Christianity held a place at the
forefront of Western progress. At the end of their stay at
a village of Chilcats, Muir and Young attended a prayer
meeting. A shaman, whom Muir described as "old" but
"dignified," concluded an eloquent speech with the following
words ; "'Hereafter, I will keep silent and listen to the
good words of the missionaries, who know God and the places
we go to when we die so much better than I do.'"^® Muir
recorded nearly identical words from a Stickeen Chief named
Shakes at Fort Wrangell. In Shakes' speech, Muir
underscored profound similarities between Native American
conceptions of atonement and those of the Judeo-Christian
tradition.
As a result of his travels, Muir believed the Tlinkit
Indians were the most advanced of all. Like the Chilcat
shaman and Stickeen Chief, these people readily accepted
Christianity.
In a general view of the wild races of mankind with reference to the efforts of missionaries in converting them to [the] Christian religion, I was surprised to find that most heartily of all the Tlinkit welcomed the coming of Christian mission aries.^®
The message was clear: Alaskan Natives recognized the
superiority of European culture and, because their religious
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traditions were similar, they would convert easily to
Christianity.
Skill in building and art also served as a means to
compare Alaskan and European cultures. The totem poles and
buildings of an abandoned Stickeen village so impressed Muir
he considered them, "astonishing as belonging to Indians.
Later, he offered a critique of skills exhibited by Alaskan
Natives in general: "In good breeding, intelligence, and
skill in accomplishing whatever they try to do with tools
they seem to me to rank above most of our uneducated white
labourers. "
Considering Muir's experience as a wood-worker and
inventor, the above observations possess authority.
However, he did not understand Native American culture
sufficiently to pass judgement on the aesthetic quality of
Native architecture and crafts; any symbolism without a
close correlation to Western European tradition would have
been lost on him. Consequently, it is not surprising that
Muir declined to rank Native American works with those
produced by "civilization's" finer craftsmen.
Understanding Native American culture without applying
the standards and values of his own culture proved
impossible for Muir. And yet, if doing so blinded him to
the complexities of Native cultures and relegated them to a
status beneath his own, it also made him far more
comfortable around the Indians of Alaska than he had been
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with California Indians. In both instances, he gained a
level of familiarity by comparing them to the uneducated
working classes. In the case of California Indians this
meant a comparison to the dirtiest, most undisciplined,
laborers. For Alaskan Indians, cleanliness and
industriousness provided the basis for a resemblance to the
best workers--those who were sober, skilled, and simple.
John Muir's association of Native Americans with
different classes of workers also indicates his support for
the "corporate order" of the late-nineteenth century. His
first two trips to Alaska were made in 1879 and 1881,
respectively. The two dates framed his marriage to Louisa
Strentzel and assumption of management of the Strentzel
estate. They also came at the end of a decade of crisis in
American life. Author Richard Slotkin has argued that the
1870s brought to a head conflict between "the will and
desires of a 'lower' human order or class . . . and the new
industrial system as defined by its owners and managers.
The conflict pitted two sharply contrasting ideologies.
As Slotkin points out, the new managerial system "required
the willing subordination of worker to manager, and of
private ambition to corporate necessity.Such subord
ination, however, clashed with the "political ideology of
'free labor' for whose vindication the Civil War had been
fought.'"^* Slotkin identifies three crises that threatened
the managerial order during the 1870s : Labor "riots" and
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strikes, the threat of race war in the South, and the Indian
wars of the 1870s. One event, in particular, came to stand
symbolically for conflict in all three arenas.
The events of the Sioux War of 1876, culminating in Custer's Last Stand, were treated as a paradigm of the disaster that might overtake civilization as we know it' if moral authority and political power were conceded to a class of people whose natural gifts were like those of 'redskin savages.' The basic link between White workers. Blacks, and Indians was their common resistance to the managerial disciplines of industrial labor and to the Malthusian discipline of the labor market place, which required men to 'work or starve' and to accept starvation wages when the market decreed them.
From John Muir's perspective, there were two kinds of
laborers: those who accepted managerial discipline, and
workers such as Billy and California shakemakers who valued
individual freedom above both corporate and individual
discipline. The uncouth habits and freedom of California
Indians corresponded directly with those of the threatening,
undisciplined worker. Conversely, Alaskan Natives who were
clean in their habits and functioned as reliable guides,
posed no threat to Muir, personally, or to the managerial
order.
John Muir did not see a blue-print for a relationship
between humans and their environment in Native Alaskan
culture. During his 1881 trip to Alaska, he watched polar
bears being shot as they swam near the decks of the steamer
he travelled on. Sport hunting had always raised Muir's
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temper, but the sight of the magnificent white bears being
skinned on deck, their bloody carcasses flung overboard to
sink into the dark waters, left him livid.
The Eskimos hunt and kill them [polar bears] for food, going out to meet them on the ice with spears and dogs. This is merely one savage living on another. But how civilized people, seeking for heavens and angels and millenniums, and the reign of universal peace and love, can enjoy this red, brutal amusement, is not so easily understood.^®
Muir's criticism of this slaughter showed him at his
passionate best, but it also left no doubt that he ranked
civilization's noble impulses far above Native relationships
with the land and the animals they hunted. It also
displayed his reluctance to throw out a definition of Native
Americans as savages. Finally, the above passage
illustrates Muir's rigid separation of mundane activities
from the spiritual realm. Since he could not see spiritual
qualities in his own efforts to satisfy earthly needs, he
ignored the possibility that, for Eskimos, hunting possessed
a spiritual dimension.
Besides skill, Muir also judged the efficiency of
Alaskan Indians. At the end of his record of the 1879
expedition, he wrote a short chapter entitled "Alaska
Indians." In these pages, the author evaluated the
efficiency of the Alaskan Indians and alluded to a genetic
divide separating them from most other American Indians.
It was easy to see that they differed greatly from the typical American Indian of the interior of this continent. They were doubtless derived from the Mongol stock. Their down-slanting oval eyes,
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wide cheek-bones, and rather thick, outstanding upper lips at once suggest their connection with the Chinese or Japanese. I have not seen a single specimen that looks in the least like the best of the Sioux, or indeed of any of the tribes to the east of the Rocky Mountains. They also differ from other North American Indians in being willing to work, when free from the contamination of bad whites.
Muir's failure to identify any similarities between the
culture of Alaskan Indians and the Indians he encountered in
the contiguous United States often goes unacknowledged by
historians. Although he recognized that the Alaskan Indians
took a biocentric view of the world, he failed to infer that
this might also be an important aspect of other Native
American Cultures. Instead, he suggested a genetic divide
separated the Alaskan Indians from the continental Indians.
Future travels convinced Muir that the New Zealand Maoris
shared a similar, and superior, ancestry with the Tlinkit
Indians of Alaska.
It seems a bit uncharitable to point out the limits of
Muir's insight into Native culture during his Alaskan
visits. There is little doubt in my mind that these trips
tested Muir's beliefs on a fundamental level. Conceding
that his characterization of Alaskan Natives as children was
deeply patronizing and limiting, I believe it also pushed
Muir into a period of genuine concern, unfortunately short
lived, about the future of Native American peoples.
During his 1881 trip to Alaska on the steamer Thomas
Corwin. John Muir and the ship's crew visited several
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villages on the island of Saint Michael. The Indians in the
villages had been decimated by famine in the winter of 1878-
79, and when John Muir visited them, the villages were empty
and quiet, save for the bones of those who perished. From
Muir's perspective, the famine was the result of contact
with European Americans.
About two hundred perished here, and unless some aid be extended by our government which claims these people, in a few years at most every soul of them will have vanished from the face of the earth; for, even where alcohol is left out of the count, the few articles of food, clothing, guns, etc., furnished by the traders, exert a degrading influence, making them less self-reliant, and less skillful as hunters. They seem easily susceptible of civilization, and well deserve the attention of our government.
Though John Muir's concern for the Alaskan Natives was
sincere, his interest extended only as far as saving
individual lives. It did not include their culture. For,
while he claimed to respect their beliefs, he still
considered Western civilization superior to that of Native
Alaskans.
Unfortunately, John Muir's concern for the lives of
Alaskan Natives did not carry to other Native Americans
living south of Alaska. As stated above, he suggested a
genetic divide between certain Alaskan Natives and those of
the continent's interior. On reading Muir's writing on
Native Americans in the West, following his first trips to
Alaska, it becomes apparent that Muir internalized this
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notion of a genetic divide. The following description of
Mono Indians published in his book. The Mountains of
California (1894), aptly illustrates Muir's return to his
more typical characterizations of Native Americans.
At length, as I entered the pass, the huge rocks began to close all around in all their wild, mysterious impressiveness, when suddenly, as I was gazing eagerly about me, a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight, lumbering toward me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion like bears. I never turn back, though often so incli ned. . . . I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears and as crooked as summit pines, the strange creatures were sufficiently erect to belong to our own species. They proved to be nothing more formidable than Mono Indians dressed in the skins of sage rabbits. . . . Occasionally a good countenance may be seen among the Mono Indians, but these, the first speci mens I had seen, were mostly ugly, and some of them altogether hideous. The dirt on their faces was fairly stratified, and seemed so ancient and so undisturbed it might almost possess a geological significance. The older faces were, moreover, strangely blurred and divided into sections by furrows that looked like the cleavage-joints of rocks, suggesting exposure on the mountains in a cast-away condition for ages. Somehow they seemed to have no right place in the landscape, and I was glad to see them fading out of sight down the pass.^
Though reproducing many familiar themes, the above passage
also contains something new. For the first time, Muir
took care in noting the harmless nature of the Indians :
"They proved to be nothing more formidable than Mono Indians
. . ." This is significant because, in 1894, Muir had only
recently re-entered the literary world after years of
absence. He was embarking on a period in his life defined
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by sustained advocacy and defense of America's parks and
Forest Reserves.
In an essay. "The Trouble with Wilderness,"
contemporary historian William Cronon has traced how the
terror early Puritans felt for the "wilderness" slowly
evolved into the admiration for wild places held by
nineteenth century Transcendentslists. Cronon found that in
the Transcendentalist's reverence for the sublime a strong
current of Puritan terror remained. Although nature was
profound, there was also something horrible and imposing in
its power. According to Cronon, this terror began to
subside dramatically in "the second half of the eighteenth
century."
As more and more tourists sought out the wilder ness as spectacle to be looked at and enjoyed for its great beauty, the sublime in effect became domesticated. The wilderness was still sacred, but the religious sentiments it evoked were more those of a pleasant parish church than those of a grand cathedral or a harsh desert retreat. The writer who best captures this late romantic sense of a domesticated sublime is undoubtedly John Muir, whose descriptions of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada reflect none of the anxiety or ter ror one finds in earlier writers.
Cronon's assessment is especially valid when applied to
Muir's years of park and Forest Reserve advocacy.
Starting with The Mountains of California. Muir
specifically targeted tourists as his audience. As has
already been mentioned, in books such as Our National Parks
(1901), and The Yosemite (1912), he went to great lengths to
describe the most spectacular sights tourists might visit.
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recommending camping trips they should take, and informing
them as to where accommodations might be secured. Wishing
to foster the public's appreciation for the Forest Reserves
and parks, he advocated improved access and lodging.
Writing for a crowd unaccustomed to life outside the city,
Muir also tried to allay fears of dangerous animals and
rampaging Indians. In Our National Parks, he assured
readers that Indians need no longer be feared in the Black
Hills Forest Reserve :
The Indians are dead now, and so are most of the hardly less striking free trappers of the early romantic Rocky Mountain times. Arrows, bullets, scalping-knives, need no longer be feared ; and all the wilderness is peacefully open.”
Similarly, Muir observed that the Blackfeet and Bannocks,
who once frequented Yellowstone and its environs, were gone :
"No scalping Indians will you see. Throughout the West,
the story was the same : "As for Indians, most of them are
dead or civilized into useless innocence.
In his two works. The Yosemite and Our National Parks.
Muir includes a substantial amount of history concerning
Native Americans. He focusses on dramatic events from the
period of contact with European Americans. As with lines
assuring tourists that Indians no longer posed a threat,
these passages were meant to appeal to a large, middle-
class, urban audience. In both cases, Muir's writing
reflects popular ideas and portrayals of the day concerning
Native Americans and frontier figures such as trappers.
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Performers, artists, and writers at the turn of the
century were caught up in the process of romanticizing the
lives of Native Americans and the Western Frontier.
Simultaneous with this romanticization, most artists and
writers portrayed them as a "vanishing race." The few
remnants of the once great Indian nations, it was thought,
were bound to disappear from the earth altogether within a
short space of time.
Dictating his memoirs at Edward Harriman's summer home
in 1908, Muir cast back for childhood memories of Scotland
and growing up on Wisconsin farms. These reminiscences
would form the basis for The Story of My Boyhood and Youth.
In this book, Muir remembered an incident on the farm in
which his father argued with a neighbor, Mr. Mair, over the
removal of Indians from their native lands. Muir's father
felt European American farmers put the land to far better
use than Indians, while Mr. Mair contested the injustice of
dispossessing them of their lands. Looking back over the
decades, Muir remembered his thoughts concurring with those
of Mr. Mair.
And I well remember thinking that Mr. Mair had the better side of the argument. It then seemed to me that, whatever the final outcome [of the conflict between European Americans and Native Americans] might be, it was at this stage of the fight only an example of the rule of might with but little or no thought to the right or welfare of the other fellow . . .
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In light of Muir's views of Indians during his time in the
Sierras and other memories documented in Mv Boyhood and
Youth. such early sentiments seem unlikely. For the balance
of his life, it not his life entire, he resisted notions
that Native Americans were equals. As with the majority of
European Americans, his sympathy for the Indians grew only
after their lifestyle was lost forever.
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1. John Muir, Travels in Alaska. (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1915); reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1992), 784.
2. Ibid., 806.
3. John Muir, "1st Alaska Trip," AMs, October 1879 to December 14, TMs by William F . Badé, ca. 1915, page 6, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 26.
4. Carolyn Merchant, "Re inventing Eden : Western Culture as Recovery Narrative," in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, paperback edition, edited by William Cronon (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 144.
5. Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind. 3d ed., (New Haven and London : Yale University Press, 1967), 47-50.
6. Ibid., 169-70.
7. Donald Worster, An Unsettled Country: Changing Landscapes of the American West (Albuquerque; University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 70. Also, see Calvin Martin, "An Introduction Aboard the Fidèle,” in The American Indian and the Problem of History, ed. Calvin Martin (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 3-26. Martin discusses nineteenth-century genteel "Indian hating" as it is presented in Herman Melville's The Confidence Man : His Masquerade (1857). In addition, he considers the problems writing "Indian history" has presented to historians past and present.
8. John Muir, Mv First Summer in the Sierra (Boston and Constable London; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911); reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books (Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 193.
9. Ibid., 210.
10. John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf. (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916); reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle ; The Mountaineers, 1922), 155.
11. John Muir, near La Grange, to David Gilrye Muir, L, 24 September 1869, Microfilm Edition of the John Muir Papers (1858- 1957 ) . edited by Ronald H. Limbaugh and Kirsten E. Lewis, (Alexandria, VA; Chadwyck-Healey, 1985), 2.
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12. Muir, Mv First Summer. 211.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., 266.
15. Ibid., 273.
16. Richard F. Fleck, Henry Thoreau and John Muir among the Indians (Hamden Connecticut: Archon Books, 1985), 42.
17. For Travels in Alaska. I consulted John Muir, "1st Alaska Trip,” AMs Journal, October 1879 to December 14, TMs by William F. Badé, ca. 1915, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 26; and John Muir, Journals and Sketchbooks 1876-1879. AMs, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 25. For Mv First Summer in the Sierra. I examined John Muir, "Sierra Journal Summer of 1869,” ca. 1887, AMs (notebook), ["Early draft of Mv First Summer in the Sierra. 3 volumes prepared ca. 1887 from missing original 1869 journal"!. Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 31.
18. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 735.
19. Ibid., 739.
20. John Muir, The Storv of Mv Boyhood and Youth (The Atlantic Monthly Company, 1912); reprint, (Madison and Milwaukee : The University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), 152.
21. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 797.
22. John Muir, The Cruise of the Corwin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1917); reprint, (San Francisco : Sierra Club Books, 1993). 166.
23. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 779.
24. Muir, Cruise of the Corwin. 165.
25. For Muir's observations on the impact of alcohol on a Hootsenoo village see Travels in Alaska. 781-82.
26. Muir, Cruise of the Corwin. 55.
27. Robert F . Berkhofer considers the continued impact of early Spanish contact on European conceptions of Indians. See Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., The Wite Man's Indian : Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1978), 10-12. For the motivations of Spanish Friars in characterizing Indians as children see Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico : An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain. 1523-
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1572 (Berkely and Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1966), 232; 290-92.
28. Berkhofer, The White Man's Indian. 164; 170-73.
29. Ibid., 53.
30. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 792.
31. John Muir's father was a follower of the Protestant sect known as the Campbellites. For a discussion of the debt Campbellism owed to rationalist and enlightened thought see Sydney E. Ahlston, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven and London : Yale University Press, 1972; reprint, 1973), 449.
32. Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk. 136.
33. John Muir, "Autobiographical Sketches : From Leaving University to About 1906," TMs, ca. 1908, page 453, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 45.
34. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 779.
35. Most biographers note the similarities between Muir's biocentrism and Native American religions. The following note is a reference to just one; Stephen Fox, John Muir and His Legacy; The American Conservation Movement (Boston and Toronto : Little, Brown and Company, 1981), 364.
36. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 799.
37. Ibid., 812.
38. Muir, "Autobiographical Sketches," page 353.
39. Ibid., 754,
40. Ibid., 784.
41. Richard Drinnon considers the problem of evaluating Native American "art" from a European perspective in "The Metaphysics of Dancing Tribes," in The American Indian and the Problem of Hi storv. ed. Calvin Martin (New York and Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1987), 110.
42. Richard Slotkin, The Gunfiqhter Nation : The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (Atheneum, 1992 ; reprint. New York; HarperCollins Publishers. Inc., 1993), 18-19. Also, see Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment; the Myth of the Frontier in the Ace of Industrialization. 1800-1890 (New York : Atheneum, 1985), 433-532.
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43. Slotkin, The Gunfiqhter Nation. 19.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid., 19-20.
46. Muir, The Cruise of the Corwin. 128.
47. For an idea of the mythic and spiritual role hunting played in Native American cultures, see Calvin Martin, Keepers of the Game : Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade (Berkely: University of California Press, 1978), 118-122.
48. Muir, Travels in Alaska. 810-11.
49. Richard Fleck's work is especially notable in its failure to distinguish between Muir's attitudes toward Alaskan Indians and his attitudes toward Native Americans in California, Wisconsin, and the West: Henrv Thoreau and John Muir. 28. Muir's comparison of Tlinkit and Maoris appears in John Muir, "Autobiographical Sketches : From Leaving University to About 1906," TMs, ca. 1908, Microform Edition of the John Muir Papers. 45 .
50. Muir, Cruise of the Corwin. 88.
51. The following quote portrays a scene that Muir also Includes in Mv First Summer. 270-71. The two versions of the scene are very similar, but slight alterations indicate that Muir went over them before the publication of both books.
52. John Muir, The Mountains of California (New York: Century, 1894); reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle ; The Mountaineers, 1992), 334.
53. William Cronon, "The Trouble with Wilderness; or. Getting Back to the Wrong Nature," in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, paperback edition, edited by William Cronon (New York and London : W.W. Norton & Company, 1996 ), 75.
54. John Muir, Our National Parks (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co » 1901; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle : The Mountaineers, 1992), 464.
55. Ibid., 479.
56. Ibid., 470. Muir's writing here closely correlates with popular conceptions of Native Americans as belonging to a "vanishing race." See Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man's Indian. 29-31.
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57. Examples of Muir's romantic view of history may be found in Our National Parks. 479, and The Yosemite {New York: The Century Co., 1912; reprinted in The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books. Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1992), 702-705.
58. For a treatment of the roroanticization of Native Americans in art, refer to William H. Goetzmann and William N. Goetzmann, The West of the Imagination (New York and London : W.W. Norton & Company, 1986), 206-34.
59. Muir, Boyhood and Youth. 175.
60. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man's Indian. 30.
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CONCLUSIONS
In an essay entitled Equity. Eco-racism and Environ
mental History, historian Martin V. Helosi notes the
parallel nature of the evolution of environmental history
and modern environmentalism. Helosi credits the environ
mental movement of the 1960s and 1970s with having provided
the young field of environmental history with "much of its
inspiration.As a result, the values of many environ
mental activists and environmental historians were similar,
if not identical. In its early years the close association
between the activists and academics was the cause of some
concern >
Since the emergence of environmental history was so strongly influenced by political and social goals of environmental activism in the 1960s and 1970s, some members of the academic community were quick to dismiss it as a 'fad' or to brand it simply as 'advocate history.
Although Helosi recognizes problems linked to the close
association between activism and history, he remains opti
mistic about environmental history's future.
I agree with Helosi's optimism; however, the pitfalls
of these associations still merit attention. In the case of
John Muir, biographers have continued to express close
101
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fellowship with both their subject and the modern environ
mental movement. For example, an anthology dedicated to
analyzing John Muir opens with a poem by Richard Fleck
advocating the restoration of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley.^ The
last six lines read.
He hike to the foot of Wapama Falls to catch a misty glimpse of the real power of this inundated valley, that other Yosemite the Scotsman dreamed of saving and we dream of draining if only we can find a way.
Richard F . Fleck April 21. 1990
In a more qualified tone. Stephen Fox opens his book on John
Muir and the conservation movement by clearly stating his
orientation: To make my bias clear at the outset: "I
consider myself a conservationist, at least by sympathy if
not by affiliation or activity.
My object here is not to criticize Richard Fleck or
Stephen Fox for possessing biases and stating them openly.
On the contrary, I find their tack admirable in its honesty.
However, a bias in favor of the modern environmental
movement is common to the majority of critical analysis
aimed at Muir and every biography I have encountered. The
impact is predictable. As a key founder of the environ
mental movement. John Muir is portrayed as being far ahead
of his time— one who rose above the cultural blinders common
to his era to preserve the integrity of irreplaceable
natural wonders and ecosystems. In many respects, such a
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portrayal is fair. Americans owe an enormous debt to John
Muir for his work as a preservationist.
Well-placed recognition aside, it should be conceded
that John Muir's biographers have sacrificed accuracy in
their eagerness to heap accolades on the preservationist and
promote his ideals. This tendency carries several ramifi
cations. Most importantly, biographers have grossly over
simplified conflict surrounding the establishment and
protection of Parks and Forest Reserves in the American
West. For example. Stephen Fox reduces such conflict to a
simple formula.
The campaign for Yosemite set a pattern to be repeated many times in future public quarrels over the environment. At stake : a piece of the natural world. On one side : its defenders, spearheaded by amateurs with no economic stake in the outcome, who took time from other Jobs to vol unteer time and money for the good fight. On the other side : the enemy, usually joining the struggle because of their jobs, with a direct economic or professional interest in the matter and (therefore) selfish motives. Politics seldom lends itself to such simple morality plays. But environmental issues have usually come down to a stark alignment of white hats and black hats.^
My study of Muir's biases against working class peoples is
intended to open the door to a deeper analysis of these
conflicts. For John Muir the protection of Yosemite was
inseparable from self-interest: preservation helped ensure
a place to recreate, pursue spiritual growth, and to make
scientific inquiries. No doubt, Muir's advocacy of
preservation was also intended to benefit society at large,
but he clearly privileged the physical, spiritual, and moral
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health of the educated» urban tourist over that of
shepherds » shakemakers, and Native Americans.
John Muir's bias against workers raises the question of
how great a role class played in the heated disputes over
the establishment and protection of Parks and Forest
Reserves. A recent essay by Karl Jacoby, "Class and
Environmental History: Lessons From 'The War in the
Adirondacks,'" demonstrates that turn-of-the-century
conservation accentuated deep bifurcations between the
classes. In the Adirondacks » an intense tension grew
between wealthy urbanites who recreated in the state park
and the local poor who made their living from those same
lands. Karl Jacoby points out that, with access to
political power, urban elites imposed hunting, fishing, and
access restrictions that were intended to protect and
enhance opportunities for sport. Such restrictions were
rarely made with the welfare of the local populace in mind
and in some cases threatened their ability to survive. In
the Adirondacks, the tension between wealthy urban recrea
tionists and locals, living at or near subsistence levels,
built to the point of violence.®
As Jacoby notes in his essay, one of the reasons
environmental historians have devoted little time to the
issue of class in relationship to environmental issues is
that "the field's early practitioners unconsciously adopted
the class assumptions of the late-nineteenth-century
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conservationists about whom they were writing.
Fortunately, the trend now seems to be in the opposite
direction, with an increasing number of studies devoted to
the issue of class and its relationship to recreation, work,
and resources in the West.®
John Muir's bias against uneducated laborers suggests
that conflict over Western Parks and Forest Reserves was not
simply an affair of "black hats" versus "white hats." Park
status certainly threatened local workers with displacement.
Furthermore, John Muir's relationship to Billy implies a
deep division between his values and those of local
Westerners : Muir valued order above all else, while Billy
strongly valued his independence and freedom. Needless to
say, the extent to which laborers and small producers were
impacted by the establishment of Parks and Forest Reserves
warrants more attention than is available in the space of
this thesis.
The impact of John Muir's wilderness philosophy on the
lives of Native Americans has received notice in recent
years. Historian Mark Spence has traced the removal of
Native Americans from Yosemite and Glacier National Parks.
Unlike many other Parks, the Yosemite supported a community
of Native Americans up until the 1950s (though Park policies
had been restricting their activities and reducing their
numbers in the park since the turn of the century).
According to Spence, Muir's portrayal of Native Americans as
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dirty and "unnatural" inhabitants of the wilderness
contributed to their removal. With other writers, Muir
helped establish a popular image of wilderness as, "an
empty, uninhabited, primordial landscape that has been
preserved as God first intended it to be."® Spence's work
serves as an important corrective and highlights the mixed
nature of John Muir's legacy.
Less clear is the legacy of John Muir's bias against
working class people and his movement within the circles of
California's intellectual and economic elite. As the
twentieth century draws to a close, the environmental
movement has come under increased scrutiny for exhibiting
elitist tendencies. Authors such as Mark Dowie and Robert
Gottlieb have thoroughly lampooned the nation's largest
environmental organizations for remaining "stubbornly
elitist."^® According to Dowie, this elitism has seriously
hampered the movement.
American land, air, and water are certainly in better shape than they would have been had the movement never existed, but they would be in far better condition had environmental leaders been bolder; more diverse in class, race, and gender; less compromising in battle ; and less gentle manly in their day-to-day dealings with adver saries. “
Some of the charges Dowie levels against the modern
environmental movement also resonate when placed against
Muir's activities. For example, when Mark Dowie criticizes
the Sierra Club of the late twentieth century, one is
reminded of John Muir's reliance on Edward Harriman and the
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Southern Pacific Railroad in winning his major political
battles. Dowie is especially critical of the organization
for its heavy reliance on corporate donations and for its
preference to "negotiate" with corporations rather than to
use tactics of direct confrontation. The failure of large
environmental organizations to win, or even attempt to win,
the support of local Western communities in environmental
battles brings to mind John Muir's appeals to urban tourists
and his biased treatment of Western woodsworkers.
With the above considerations in mind, it should come
as some surprise that Mark Dowie suggests the environmental
movement should return to the traditions of John Muir. In
his book. Losing Ground : American Environmentalism at the
Close of the Twentieth Century. Dowie predicts a powerful,
revitalizing, surge in the environmental movement, a surge
he labels as "the fourth wave." This surge, Dowie believes,
will break free of the elitist tendencies of previous
movements, and will be defined by "a sense of justice.
The fourth wave of American environmentalism will be very American. By all indications, the move ment is already well on its way to becoming multiracial, multi-ethnic, multiclass, and multi cultural. It also contains many traits that characterized the American Revolution— dogged determination, radical inquiry, a rebellion against economic hegemony, and a quest for civil authority at the grassroots.
Later in his text, Dowie states that the formative ideas of
preservationists such as John Muir have much more in common
with "the fourth wave," than they do with the leading.
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national, environmental organizations of the late twentieth
century. In light of John Muir's class and racial biases. I
find such a contention completely untenable.
In one sense, it is not surprising that critics of the
modern environmental movement fail to examine Muir's
thoughts and writing carefully. The tradition of
hagiography surrounding the famed preservationist is simply
too well-developed; there are few clues in the extant
literature to suggest Muir's legacy to the environmental
movement was anything but positive. This tendency is
unfortunate and will most likely diminish, rather than
increase, Muir's relevance to the modern environmental
movement. Rather than using Muir's work to understand
shortcomings in the modern movement, critical writers tend
to restrict themselves to a quick congratulatory nod toward
Muir, or to seek direction from entirely different sources.
The latter option can yield positive results. For example,
Robert Gottlieb's history of the environmental movement
sheds light on another important influence on the modern
environmental movement: Alice Hamilton. A contemporary of
John Muir, Hamilton recognized the importance of the health
of urban and industrial environments.^^ This rediscovery of
an important environmental leader broadens our understanding
of the environmental movement. Nevertheless, John Muir and
his contributions seem too rich in their complexity to
abandon and, if he is not reduced to the level of idol, his
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life and work should still provide insight into both the
strengths and weaknesses of the modern environmental
movement.
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1. Martin V. Helosi» "Equity, Eco-racism and Environmental History," Environmental History Review 19 (Fall 1995), 2.
2. Ibid.
3. Richard F. Fleck, "On Renewing Muir's Dream," poem in John Muir : Life and Work, edited by Sally M. Miller (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), dedication page.
4. Stephen Fox, John Muir and His Leqacv: The American Conservation Movement (Boston and Toronto : Little, Brown, and Company, 1981), ix.
5. Ibid., 103.
6. Karl Jacoby, "Class and Environmental History: Lessons From 'The War in the Adirondacks,'" Environmental History 2 (July 1997): 324-342.
7. Ibid., 325.
8. For example, Louis Warren's recent book. The Hunter's Game. carefully considers the role of class and race in conflicts over fish and wildlife resources in the West. See Louis Warren, The Hunter's Game : Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth- Centurv America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997). Richard White studies the relationship between work, recreation, and understandings of the environment in The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995). A related work is Richard White's essay, "'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature," in Uncommon Ground; Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. paperback edition, edited by William Cronon, 171-85 (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996).
9. Mark Spence, "Dispossessing the Wilderness : Yosemite Indians and the National Park Ideal, 1864-1930" Pacific Historical Review 65 (February 1996): 27-59. For the quoted material see page 59. Also see Mark Spence, "Crown of the Continent, Backbone of the World: The American Wilderness Ideal and Blackfeet Exclusion from Glacier National Park" Environmental History 1 (July 1996): 29-49.
10. The quote is from Mark Dowie, Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England : The MIT Press, 1995), xii.
11. Ibid., X.
12. Ibid., 207.
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13. Ibid.
14. Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Soring; The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington D.C. and Covelo, California: Island Press, 1993), 6.
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